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# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



^ 



THE 



Immaterial Jhlements 



THEIR 



ATTRIBUTES AND RELATIONS. 



Newly Discovered Laws and Wonderful Consequences ; Truths in 
Superstition and Errors in Science; Unity, Harmony, Economy j 
Correlation and Triune Dependence of all things; Missing 
Links Supplied; Mind, Matter and Force; Time Space 
and Motion; Mesmerism, Psychology and Astrol- 
ogy; Mans Relation with Lower Animals; 
Organic and Animal Life, Etc. 



ELI DENSMORE SARGENT, M. D.. 

Graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, of New York ; Formerly 

Medical Cadet U. S. Army, and A. A. Surgeon U. S. A. and U. S. N,; 

Contributor to Am. Med. and Surg. Reporter, Am. Quarterly 

Journal of Med. Sciences, Etc. 



14 Truth crushed to earth shall rise again^ 
The eternal years of God are hers y 

But Error \ wounded ^ -writhes with pain, 
And. dies amid his worshippers." 

BRYANT. 









PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. AND FOR SALE BY 

JANSEN, McCLURG &"cO., 

CHICAGO, 1873. 






ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE 

YEAR 1873, BY ELI DENSMORE SARGENT, M. D., IN 

THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON, D, C. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



ERRATA. 

Page 28, for " Paralized " read " Polarized. 

Page 72, last line for " Mesmerizee " read " Mesmerizer." 









TO MY FATHER 




g§§ H*t!i« 



EW^ 



whose constant affection has been my guiding star in the eventful 
voyage of Life. 

IN TESTIMONY OF FRIENDLY ESTEEM AND VENERATION 



THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE 
AUTHOR. 



PRE FA C E. 



While the hill of science is rough and rugged in 
comparison with the flowery fields of fiction, in its 
stern and barren cliffs tve find the richest gems of 
truth that amply repay us for the toil in their 
discovery. 

In the region herein explored I have pointed out 
not only those features which are clearly perceptible, 
but venttired to the partially obscure, as one might, 
while ascending a mountain observe the landscape, 
not only so far as plainly discernable, but even look 
beyond the limits of accurate vision, and by com- 
parision of the known with the unknown form some 
conception of the mysterious fields of the dim and 
uncertain, 

I trust that any false impressions thus received 
may be dispelled by a higher ascent to which the 
interest of the subject may impel and hope that 



6 PREFACE. 

while the space assigned to the work has compelled 
Die to pass streams of speculation only pointing 
at their source you may follow their intricate wind- 
ings to the great ocean of truth, the Universal 
Laws of Nature and that the limits of our 
explorations so far as herein conducted may prove 
but the outskirts of a rich region to which ive 
shall advance. 

With the wish that you may enjoy the prospect 
as zvell as I myself I hope to be pardoned for 
taking you over so large a field in so short a 
time and trust you may be no more wearied and 
no less benefitted than if you had been confined 
to a single idea. 

E. D. S. 
Chicago, August, 1873. 



G03^"TEI^"TS. 



I. 

UNIVERSAL LAWS. 



PAGES. 



Introduction — Means of Progress — Convertibility — 
Economy — Dependent Trinity of Mind, Matter 
and Force — Time, Space and Motion, - - 9 — 20 

II. 

FORMS OF FORCE. 

Light — Heat — Electricity — Chemical Affinity — Cohe- 
sion — Gravitation — Capillary Attraction — Ca- 
talysis — Inertia — Motion — Their Correlation and 
Convertibility ------ 27—37 

III. 

VITAL FORCE. 

Animal and Vegetable Organic Life— Animal Life-r- 

Origin — Correlation — Essential Conditions - 38 — 56 

IV. 

MENTAL FORCE. 

Mind — Qualities — Laws — Correlation — Conservation 
— Psychology and Mesmerism — Lower Animals 
and Man — Dependence - 57 — 87 



o CONTENTS. 

V. 
HARMONY. 

PAGES. 

Evidence — Science and Superstition — Bi ble — Bigotry 
— Astrology — Sound — Force 1 — Sentiment — Num- 
ber — Emotion — Mental and Moral Qualities — 
The Universe. 88—98 



ERRATA. 

Page 76, 1 xtli line supply "and" after "imagination." 

" " 12th u for "fore" read "force." 

" 15th " for '* fore as " read ,% forces.'" 

kt 28th -" for "bound" read "found." 

" 92, 19th " for 'reflections" read "inflections.' 



I. 



UNIVERSAL LAWS, 



INTRODUCTION— MEANS OF PROGRESS— CONVERTIBILITY- 
ECONOMY— DEPENDENT TRINITY OF MIND, MA T- 
TER AND FORCE— TIME, SPACE AND 
MOTION. 



A RETROSPECT of the progress of science inspires 
admiration for the achievements of the philos- 
ophers of the past, mingled with wonder that 
mankind should have remained so long in 
ignorance of important truths. 

Science is the parent of art, and that men 
capable of such attainments as mark the ages of 
antiquity, and gifted with intellect equal to our 
own, should have studied astronomy for more than 
fifty centuries without discovering the form or 
motions of the earth ; that they should kill 
animals as long, and even dissect human bodies 
with a view to ascertaining the physiological 
functions for a thousand years, before discover- 
ing the circulation of the blood, are facts which 
excite profound astonishment. 



10 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

Reason and experiment go hand in hand 
in the exploration of the mysteries of the 
universe. While the ancients believed it possible 
to solve every problem by the application of 
logical rules and demonstrate every truth by the 
reasoning process, the numerous errors which 
they committed have induced in these latter days 
a distrust of that method, until now it is required 
that facts shall be proved by experiment. This 
is doubtless the true method of investigation and 
too great credit cannot be given to those who 
have taken doubtful theories from the realm of 
speculation and placed them upon an undisputa- 
ble basis by the test of actual experiment ; yet 
we may rush to the extreme of neglecting the 
application of trains of thought which if closely 
and accurately followed will be rich in results. 

We should also remember that nature is on 
every side exhibiting phenomena quite as impor- 
tant in evidence of her laws as any experiments 
performed in the laboratory of the chemist. It 
is because the former are open to the observation 
of all and are never liable to mistake, that they 
are of greater utility in illustration than the latter, 
and observation ranks among the most important 
means of acquiring knowledge. It was this that 
led our master Sir Isaac Newton to the discovery 
of the law of gravitation, and other great discov- 
eries own a like origin. 

That quality of the universe which we term 
material is capable of most readily acting upon 



FROM THE MATERIAL. II 

the mind through the senses, and perception is 
the primary step in every mental process. The 
progress of science is therefore from the material. 
We acquire knowledge by the comparison of the 
known with the unknown. By this means the 
child, who commences with informing himself of 
the sensible properties of the limited number of 
objects within the scope of his observation ar- 
rives, in later years, to the conception of facts in- 
finitely beyond the utmost limit of his puerile 
imagination ; and the human race, from a limited 
knowledge of its local surroundings successively 
attains to a knowledge of the remote parts of the 
earth, acquires definite ideas of the character, 
composition and motions of the heavenly bodies, 
traces the laws of mechanical action, deduces the 
quantitative relations by the mathematical sci- 
ences, reduces matter to its component elements 
by chemical analyses, and traces the rare and sub- 
tle fluids of nature from their origin to their des- 
tination. 

The chief glory of the human intellect is 
the ability to connect ideas so as to arrive at 
conclusions and trace the relations of cause and 
effect ; whereby man from being in infancy the 
most helpless and dependent of all created be 
ings, is capable of surpassing the limits of knowl- 
edge which restrict the unreasoning brute, and 
attaining to a power and intelligence which so far 
as we know is without limit. 



12 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS 

The mind of the child is capable of receiving 
and retaining such impressions as arise from the 
operation of the senses, with the greatest facility, 
but is, until an advanced period of childhood, 
incapable of any extended abstract reasoning. 
The object of this is evident in securing in early 
life a stock of facts that may be of service in after 
years. In like manner the early generations of 
mankind were occupied in ascertaining the plainer 
qualities of the more gross forms of matter. 
Advance from age to age has ever been in con- 
formity with a natural law of progress from the 
plain to the obscure, independent of the import- 
ance of the different branches, until now the 
mentality of the world by the progress of truth 
having attained to the ability of its just concep- 
tion, a subject is presented which in relative 
importance is in advance of all that have preceded 
it, and which seems likely to occupy a prominent 
place in the public mind during the twentieth 
century, namely, the investigation of the Imma- 
terial Elements of the universe. 

What will be the practical results of this 
investigation, time alone must demonstrate, yet 
when we conceive the comparative importance of 
these forces in nature and recall the miraculous 
consequences which in the present century have 
followed the advance in physics at its commence- 
ment, the imagination is forced to the conclusion 
that they will not be unimportant, but will far 
exceed all the wonderful discoveries of the past. 



SUBJECT. I J 

Less than two hundred years ago, Joseph 
Addison expressed the popular estimate of the 
importance of the natural sciences by saying, 
"We know water sufficiently when we know how 
to freeze it, how to boil it, and how to make it 
run and spout out in what quantity and direction 
we please, without knowing what water is. " Such 
was the most advanced aim of the philosophy of 
the age of mechanical research. 

Since that time the discovery of the composi- 
tion of water has laid the foundation for the 
science of modern chemistry, and the wonderful 
powers of steam have wrought a revolution in 
the civilized world. Then he who should have 
prophesied that men should send intelligence 
around our globe in one third of a second of 
time, harness the steam as a steed of such tran- 
scendent powers, and even render water capable 
of serving the purpose of fuel simply by 
separating that fluid into its elements, would 
have been fortunate to escape a heretic's doom in 
an asylum for mad-men. This may be taken as 
a parallel to recent views of the immaterial forces 
and Addison has still many tacit equals who 
believe that we know electricity sufficiently when 
we know how to derive and dispatch it without 
knowing what electricity is. Should the inqui- 
ries directed to the forces be as successful as we 
can expect, doubtless many results may be obtain- 
ed of which we cannot now conceive, but fancy 
hints at locomotion by light and electricity with 



14 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

consequent interplanetary intercourse and many 
minor, and possibly major achievements, for 
which the discovery of the electric currents, and 
spectral analysis, are paving the way, while the 
results to man must be most important as all his 
better part is immaterial. 

The subject of the physical forces leads direct- 
ly to that of the mental and moral manifestations 
and serves as the connecting link between the 
natural and the spiritual. Only by this course 
can we arrive at a correct and scientific under- 
standing of the more difficult problems of 
intellectual and moral philosophy, and physiology, 
and trace the laws governing our higher attributes. 
Here too results may be effected which if less 
practical in their nature than in the case of the 
physical forces, may yet be no less satisfactory 
and important. The human mind in the pursuit 
of happiness finds not its richest gems in things 
of the material world. 

We may discover and trace certain laws in the 
universe which apply throughout every depart- 
ment of matter, force, and our being. These 
laws when recognized, are of the highest 
interest and importance. 

The epoch of rapid progress and rational 
advance in the arts and sciences, dates from the 
discovery of the elementary composition of 
matter near the commencement of the present 
century. James Watt, the inventor of the steam 
engine, Cavendish, and Lavoisier, almost simul- 



UNIVERSAL LAWS. I 5 

taneously and quite independently demonstrated 
the composition of water, two of those gentlemen 
succeeding in resolving it into oxygen and 
hydrogen, while the third by the union of those 
gasses produced it. The principle being thus 
discovered that matter was capable of changing 
form, it was soon apparent that in all the changes 
which matter undergoes no increase or diminu- 
tion occurs in its quantity, and chemists began 
to trace those substances which they had 
conceived to be destroyed, burned up, or dried 
up, to new forms, and thus advanced from the 
knowledge of the grosser, to the conception of 
the more rare and imponderable forms in w T hich 
matter can exist. This was the .first step towards 
the higher and more immaterial of the universe. 
This law of economy, and its necessary conse- 
quence, convertability, are of universal application. 
Nothing of mind, matter or force, time, space or 
motion can cease to be, by any natural process 
save as it is changed into some equivalent amount 
of something else, or some other form of itself. 

The definition of force, that it is that which 
produces in matter a change of state whether of 
motion or rest, is exceedingly defective and 
inaccurate. 

Force may exist in the form of Light, Heat, 
Electricity, Chemical Affinity, the Attraction of 
Cohesion, the Attraction of Gravitation, Capilla- 
ry Attraction, and Vital Force. These have 
been termed the physical forces, or the forces of 



l6 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

nature. They are one and the same, and only 
different forms in which force may exist. To 
this list may also be added Catalysis and Mechan- 
ical Motion. Catalysis is that property possessed 
by certain substances of causing other substances 
to which they are introduced to take on new 
affinities, or abandon affinities to which they 
were otherwise bound. Mechanical motion, or 
living force, is the force of a body in motion, as 
a falling weight, in distinction from the force 
with which it presses or draws upon its support, 
while in a state of rest. These ten forms in 
which force may exhibit itself are only distinctive 
in consequence of different reactions with matter. 
They are identical, in the sense in which water is 
identical with oxygen and hydrogen, or the dia- 
mond with charcoal. It was demonstrated by 
Count Rumford that the hypothesis of latent 
heat which had been devised to account for the 
heat of friction was a fallacy, and that the heat 
of friction was the result of direct conversion 
from motion arrested. This principle on further 
observation was found to apply to the other 
forms of force. All the so-called forces are cor- 
relative and mutually convertable. As in the 
case of matter this discovery led to the question 
whether any quantity of force once in existence 
can ever be destroyed without causing or giving 
rise to an equivalent amount in the same or a 
different form, which if again seen in its original 
state, would appear as the original amount ; 



PERPERUAL MOTION. 1 7 

whether, in all the changes through which forec 
passes, if brought to its original point in the cir- 
cle, it would be found to have lost or gained in 
its circuit? 

When, through the mercy of a kind Providence 
the attempts of the old alchemists to convert 
substances to gold and fabricate the elixir of life 
were proved fruitless, an attempt was made to 
construct a machine that should be able to supply 
its own force without receiving an equivalent 
amount from external sources, and hence capable 
of continuing its motion perpetually. The me- 
chanical powers were first appealed to for the 
solution of this problem, but after the discovery, 
that the power of the lever was not the conse- 
quence of a magic influence from the arcs of circles, 
in which the power and weight are moved, but. 
that the lever, and the balance in every form, are 
subject to the law of compensation, so that a 
weight of one pound to raise two pounds one foot 
must itself fall two feet, and that two pounds 
falling one foot will again raise one pound two 
feet, no more or less, it was evident that no 
machine, could create force, but only return what 
it had received, less the amount converted into 
heat by friction. It was then found that the other 
forms of force could be changed to motion, and 
attempts were made to discover an exception to 
the equality of cause and effect in the circle of 
physical forces, but the most arduous efforts have 
only served to establish the uniform persistence of 



1 8 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

force. As in a direct course no force can be gained 
by changing its form, as from heat to motion, it 
is evident that in a reverse order nothing can be 
lost, and as this is true in whatever order the 
changes are made, it may be stated as equally true 
with the impossibility of perpetual motion, that 
force once in existence must continue a fixed 
quantity forever. Logical conclusions are when 
the logic employed is correct, quite as conclusive 
as experiments, but this conclusion resting upon 
a hypothesis of the impossibility of perpetual 
motion, it was necessary to the proof of the 
hypothesis that experiments should substantiate 
the theory. This has been accomplished. The 
result of careful experiment demonstrates that a 
hammer weighing ten pounds falling from a height 
of one foot upon a bar of iron by 13,500 blows 
produces heat sufficient to raise the temperature 
of one pound of water from the freezing point 32 
degrees above zero, on Farienheit's thermometer 
to the boiling point 212 degrees above zero, or 180 
degrees. * From these figures it appears that the 
mechanical equivalent of heat is such that 135,000 
pounds falling one foot or one pound falling 
135,000 feet is equal to the heat that will raise 
one pound of water 180 degrees Fah. or what 
is equivalent, 100 degrees centigrade, or heat 
sufficient to increase the temperature of a pound 
of water, 100 degrees centigrade will, when con- 
verted to motion or working power, raise the 

♦Von Liebig in Correlation and Conservation of Force, p. 391. 



MOTION AND HEAT. 19 

same weight of water or any other substance 
135,000 feet; or heat sufficient to increase the 
temperature of any weight of water one degree 
centigrade, will raise the same weight 1,350 feet. 
The quantitative relation thus established be- 
tween heat and motion is readily expressed with 
reference to other forms of force, by taking these 
as a standard of comparison. 

As in the case of matter the admission of the 
axiom, of its economy forced philosophers to the 
investigation of the material elements, and the 
understanding of obscure forms to which they had 
assigned a spiritual nature, {gas, geist, ghost,) 
so in tracing force through its various changes, we 
arrive at a knowledge of its true nature. Force 
is a strictly immaterial influence, analagous to 
motion, and traced backward through its changes 
to its origin, is always found to originate in the 
light and heat of the sun. Its common origin in 
all its forms, their mutual correlative convertability, 
and observation of the cause of its various mani- 
festations by reason of various reactions with 
matter, demonstrate it to be a unit, consisting of 
attraction, repulsion, and equilibrium, each depend- 
ent upon, and impossible without the others. 
The laws of economy and convertability first 
discovered in matter were found to apply to force, 

and the question now arises whether the law of 
unity applying to forces is not also applicable to 
matter? 



20 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

The discovery of the elementary composition 
of matter has reduced the infinite variety of 
compounds or substances, that abound in our world 
to about sixty-five simple components, which as 
we know of no means of separating them into 
other substances, are termed, elements. Of this 
limited number all but fourteen are quite rare, 
while four, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, 
make the greater part of the animal, vegetable, 
and seriform products met with in nature. It is 
evident that every discovery of the non^elementary 
character of any of these substances must modify 
their number. 

The progress of science ever tends to simplify 
the complex, or approach the unit. 

Examining the qualities which distinguish 
these so-called elements, we find them to be 
entirely the effects of different reactions with the 
various forms of force. Take for example the 
metal gold, and the gas hydrogen, and it is 
evident that the only distinction between these 
antipodes of the scale is in being affected by 
different degrees, or in different ways by gravita- 
tion, cohesion, light, and the other forces if any 
which give them their qualities. 

If we wish for further evidence that aside from 
the action of force every form of matter is identi- 
cal let us observe water, affected by a low degree 
of heat, cohesion and chemical affinity, it is a 
crystalline solid, more heat makes it a liquid, 
more still a vapor, and removing chemical affinity 



DEPENDENCE. 21 

we have two gasses, oxygen and hydrogen. In 
this case we know the material elements affected 
to be identical. In like manner reason will 
convince us that all the distinctive qualities of 
the elements are but the different effects of forces. 

We may therefore assume that the essential 
element of matter is a unit. Next we observe in 
force the law or property of immateriality. Let 
us examine matter as to this property. Take 
the most material object as a bar of iron ; remove 
from' it the operation of the force of gravity and 
it is without weight, take away the action of 
cohesion and it is intangible and without form 
or substance, without light it is destitute of 
color and invisible, and if these be the only forces 
acting upon it nothing remains but an abstract 
principle of matter of which we can have no 
perception, by itself, as immaterial as force. 

The seven essential properties of material ob- 
jects are Extension Attraction Inertia Divisibility 
Figure Indestructability and Impenetrability. 
These are only the result of force, except 
indestructability, which may be as an abstract 
conception, a property of matter in its essential 
essence. 

Matter and force are dependent. Matter is that 
element capable of responding to the action of 
force, and force is that quality or element 
capable of acting upon matter, to produce an 
effect which we recognize as material objects, 
and which is capable of reaction with the 



22 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

other element of the triune, the mind. As 
neither matter nor force can be exhibited except 
from their action upon each other so mind 
cannot be conceived to exist independent of them. 
Without something to think about there can be 
no thought. One born destitute of a part of his 
senses, may through the others receive impress- 
ions that culminate in ideas, but one born desti- 
tute of all senses must forever remain destitute 
of mentality. The demonstration of the 
remainder of this dependent trinity of mind 
matter and force, whereby neither matter or 
force can exist without mind, constitutes the 
grandest problem of which man can conceive, and 
leads to the conception of the origin of all things 
from the mind of the Infinite. 

The law of dependent trinity so strikingly 
observed in this instance, is a universal law. I 
will only mention a few examples of it here as 
exhibiting its claims to be so regarded, Deity, 
" Three Persons in one God " ; man, in his image ; 
the universe ; mind ; matter and force ; mind ; per- 
ception, reason and the moral quality ; perception ; 
consciousness, an object, sensation; reason ; every 
logical conclusion necessitates three premises, as 
all men are mortal, we are men, therefore we are 
mortal ; moral qualities ; faith, hope and charity ; 
moral government ; probation reward and punish- 
ment ; probation ; virtue, vice and the power of 
choosing ; virtue ; harmony with God, with man, 
and with our own being ; vice ; the opposite ; power 



TRINITY. 23 

of choosing ; knowledge of good and evil, choice, 
and ability to act. The departments of state are 
legislative judicial and executive ; of the family- 
father mother and child. Matter exhibits the 
solid liquid and aeriform states ; Nature, the 
animal vegetable and mineral kingdoms, the 
heavens, sun moon and stars ; animal life implies 
digestion circulation and respiration. Force is 
attraction, repulsion, and equilibrium, and there is 
reason to believe that the essence of matter when 
discovered will evince a corresponding trinity. 
The elements of truth in science are the three 
universal laws; of time, past, present, and future; 
of space ; length, breadth, and thickness the 
elements of all extension, and so instances might 
be multiplied to show that all things are reducible 
to a triune of which neither part can exist without 
the others, a tripod of which if either leg be 
removed the whole falls to nonentity. As a 
result of this law of dependence and a proof 
of the hypothesis of its universality, all the beings 
and objects of the universe have a mutual 
dependence upon each other, so that the anni- 
hilation of any element or any species w r ould 
induce a gradual but sure destruction of the whole. 
As in the demonstration of the laws of economy 
and uniform persistence, even in their application 
to matter and force, difficulties are experienced 
in some cases in tracing their operation, so in 
applying this law we may meet apparent exceptions. 
In the case of matter it is not always easy to 



24 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

collect the particles worn away in the processes 
of nature or art, and by weighing them, prove that 
nothing is annihilated by being worn out ; it is 
not easy to measure force expended upon the 
atmosphere to produce vibrations or mechanical 
motion in it, and show that the effect is equal to 
the cause, much less to show that the effect of 
those vibrations so widely distributed equals the 
force that produced them, but we accept these 
facts because the law or axiom on which they rest 
is established by observations within our power. 
In like manner we have sufficient evidence of a 
universal law of dependent trinity, to warrant us 
in accepting this as a known premise in our 
reasoning, from which we may be able to greatly 
extend our knowledge to the obscure, and when 
apparent exceptions occur to induce us to in- 
vestigate them until we arrive at the truth. 

Thus in the case of time and space, we see 
indications of their being elements of a dependent 
trinity, and from the inability of our minds to 
grasp them in all their apparent infinity, we 
perceive that they cannot be conceived without 
uniting with them something else. They are 
dependent for neither can exist without the other. 
They are together related to, or measures of 
motion much in the sense in which attraction and 
repulsion are related to equilibrium, and investiga- 
tion will show that they are elements of a depend- 
ent trinity of which the motion of the heavenly 
bodies is the third element. We move around the 



TIME AND SPACE. , 2J 

sun at the rate of more than iooo miles per minute, 
and around the earth's axis more than iooo 
miles an hour, and can have no conception of a 
state of absolute rest or its consequences. If our 
earth's motion was arrested it would produce heat 
by its conversion to that form of force of such 
intensity as to convert its entire structure instantly 
into fiery vapor. Until arrested, it will, with the 
motion of the other planets and suns, be expended 
in motion and its consequent time and space, 
which will be succeeded when the heavenly orbs 
shall cease to roll by something as different from 
them as light from darkness, but of which we can 
form no conception because every act of imagin- 
ation requires a known resemblance to something 
familiar. If we were unable to cover our organ 
of vision, and in a world of constant light from 
our first consciousness we could not conceive of 
darkness, but light would seem to us as time and 
space now do, eternal and infinite. The law of the 
circle is of interest in this connection. 

The law of the immaterial character of all things 
by themselves, may lead to the final discovery of 
the essence of matter, and means to act upon it 
by force to produce or make the various forms of 
matter including perhaps the metals as we are now* 
able to make what we recognize as compounds from 
recognized elements, or it may demonstrate the 
inseperable connection of dependent elements 
which is most probable. 



26 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

In the application of these laws to science, 
constant evidence in illustration of their truth will 
occur, and in their light it will appear, that, as in 
the past superstition and mystery have vanished 
before the light of science, so all things may be 
found to be in accordance with the laws of nature. 

The farther we advance in knowledge the more 
we are disposed to admit the possibility in accord- 
ance with natural laws, of what to the ignorant 
would seem miraculous. The ancients attributed 
to supernatural agency the powers of the magnet, 
the process of digestion, the meteorological phe- 
nomena, thunder and lighting, and many similar 
occurrences which we now know to be natural. 
They even considered all substances endued with 
a spirit, a term still used as synonymous with 
distilled principle. So will future generations 
recognize much that is superstitious in our present 
system, and show that all which we consider 
supernatural is but the operation of natural laws 
which we have not yet recognized, and that the 
Author of nature has so perfect a plan for the 
control of his creation, that any deviation from 
the course of nature is unnecessary, if not indeed 
from the relation between his character and the 
laws governing his works, impossible. 



II. 



FORMS OF FORCE. 



LIGHT— HE A T— ELECTRICITY— CHEMICA L A FFINITY— COHE- 
SION— GRA VITA TION— CAPILLARY A TTRA CTION— 
CA TA L YSIS—INER TIA —MO TION— THEIR 
CORRELLATION AND CON- 
VERTIBILITY. 



Light is that form of force which acts upon 
matter to give it color and that quality which 
we term visible, or capable of acting upon the 
mind through the sense of sight. Sunlight 
possesses the power of affecting both chemical 
and mechanical action in its actinic rays which 
attract the stems of plants upward and repel 
their roots downward. These actinic rays are 
only found in the light of the sun. As it is 
applied from above in the thick dark forest or on 
all sides in the open fields it modifies the contour 
of the sturdiest trees as well as the tiniest plants. 
It not only exhibits the color of the objects but 
also produces their color by its own chemical 
action. The varied tints of fruits and flowers 



28 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

and the beautiful hues of field and forest land- 
scape are penciled by the actinic rays of sun- 
light. It is the force directly active in Photo- 
graphy and until the investigations of M. Da- 
guerre little was known of its properties. The 
ancients only recognized its influence as a means 
of vision. 

It has recently acquired new interest by reason 
of certain properties it possesses which render 
it capable of conveying to us information of far 
distant objects by means of Spectral Analysis. 

When common salt, chloride of sodium, is 
mixed with alchohol the flame is found to show 
two bright yellow lines. If through this sodium 
flame light be passed which gives no lines in its 
spectrum the yellow lines will appear dark. Dif- 
ferent substances exhibit lines of peculiar color 
and position. 

Light is reflected from substances at certain 
angles. Having been so reflected it is incapable 
of being reflected at right angles to its first lines 
of reflection. Light so affected is called paralized 
light and it remains paralized throughout its en- 
tire course be that ever so far distant from its 
point of examination. 

Light affects crystallization of salts and is the 
source of the controlling agency in all organic 
functions although only recently recognized as a 
force. It is capable of direct conversion into 
chemical affinity and may remain in that form 
of force until changed to its original form or some 



LIGHT. 29 

other. Through chemical affinity its correlation 
with the other forms of force may be readily 
traced. It also seems capable of direct conver- 
sion into heat. Dark colors are soonest heated 
when exposed to the rays of the sun, light being 
absorbed and converted to heat. 

All light may readily be traced either directly 
or through chemical affinity or electricity to the 
sun. There are reasons which might lead us to 
suppose that light comes to us from the sun in the 
form of electricity until it reaches our atmosphere. 
It is still more probable that it returns to the sun 
in that form. 

Sunlight by its effect upon the brain through 
the eye is capable of inducing a violent congestion 
of that organ known as sun-stroke. This cannot 
consistently be attributed to heat, as a higher 
degree of heat from a furnace fails to produce it. 
The peculiar affection of the brain which causes 
the various forms of intermittent fever can be 
more rationally accounted for from the same 
cause acting prior to the exhibition of the disease 
than by attributing it to an imaginary malaria, 
never proved to exist, and only conceived of, as a 
necessity to account for effects the true cause of 
which was not recognized while the action of light 

was unknown. By passing the light through any 
yellow substance the actinic rays are decomposed 
and changed from blue to green thereby becoming 
inert. 



JO IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

When we remember that hardly any agent of 
the universe is independent of light and that man- 
kind remained so long ignorant of its influence we 
are led to look for new and important discoveries 
of its powers which shall show still further its 
effects upon mind and matter and its relation to 
the arts. 

Heat was admitted by Thales to his list of 
elements. Its effects could not entirely escape 
the notice of even the older philosophers. Until 
quite recently little has been known of its nature, 
A theory formerly prevailed that this and the 
other forms of force were invisible fluids. This 
theory having been disproved by the experiments 
of Count Rumford in the case of heat is now 
abandoned with reference to other forces. 

Heat is or is like a kind of molecular motion or 
a shivering activity among the invisible particles 
or the material element of the heated substance. 
One of the earliest advances towards the discovery 
of the law of the compensation of force was by 
Dr. Brown, of Scotland, the author of the Bru- 
nonian theory, according to which all life is heat. 
A modification of this theory prevailed in this 
country under the name of Thompsonianism. 
Although unimportant in its application this 

theory was as correct as to have said life is light, 
or electricity, or any other form of force, state- 
ments proved to be true by the law of the unity 
and correlation of forces. 



HEAT. 31 

Heat is a form of force whose relations with the 
other forms have been extensively observed. Its 
relations with mechanical motion have already 
been noticed. It is like light essential to all or- 
ganic action and convertible like it into the vital 
force of organic life. The sources of heat are 
chemical affinity, friction, electricity and the sun. 
Chemical affinity furnishes fire by the union of the 
oxygen of the air with the combustible substance. 
By the union of carbon and oxygen producing 
carbonic acid in our bodies, animal heat is pro- 
duced precisely like fire in our stoves only with 
less rapidity, except in the doubtful case of " spon- 
taneous combustion. 

All heat can be traced like other forms of force 
to the sun. 

The most conspicuous effect of heat is to over- 
come the force of cohesion producing expansion. 
If we take force as attraction repulsion and equi- 
librium, we may find in light all its qualities, but 
in heat the force of cohesion seems to be necessary 
to make its trinity perfect as the power of heat 
can only be exhibited or converted into motion 
when it acts upon cohesion to cause expansion as 
in the case of water converted into steam or the 
metal reduced from the solid to the liquid form. 
Here the heat furnishes repulsion and the cohe- 
sion to be overcome the attraction. 

Electricity is that form of force which most 
plainly evinces its relation with other forces. By 
the voltaic arc it is directly converted into the 



32 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

most intense heat sufficient to fuse all known sub- 
stances. Through chemical affinity it is converti- 
ble into other forms of force. Passing along a fine 
wire it fuses it ; introduced to water it decomposes 
it. It is the direct source of magnetism. Being 
frnperfectly known it was until recently presumed 
to be a visible material substance from the fact that 
in acting upon matter it exhibits visible effects, but 
these are now found to be derived from the mat- 
ter acted upon, the flame exhibiting the same color 
as from the effect of heat upon the same substances. 
By means of the aid of electricity to chemi- 
cal affinity Davy discovered the alkaline metals. 
Electric ignition shows its conversion into heat. 
Its sources as at present derived show plainly its 
correlation with other forms of force. Like light 
this force is conducted by certain substances more 
readily than by others, and generally those sub- 
stances which conduct light most readily are imper- 
fect conductors of electricity, while good electric 
conductors are opaque. 

The force of electricity consists of attraction and 
repulsion or positive and negative electricity. We 
cannot produce one without inducing a like amount 
of the other. Thunder and lightning are the 
result of the collision of positive and negative cur- 
rents, and by this union an equilibrium is estab- 
lished in which the electric force is latent only to 



MAGNETISM COHESION. 33 

be manifested again when the equilibrium is de- 
stroyed by the separation of the positive and 
negative elements which we term the production 
of electricity. 

MAGNETISM is derived from and convertible 
into electricity. It is only a modification of that 
form of force. We cannot produce either of these 
forms of force without producing the other. It is 
also capable of direct change into heat. It deflects 
polarized light. Chemical affinity and crystalliza- 
tion are affected by it. It acts most readily upon 
substances which are good conductors of electricity. 
Our bodies and nervous system are also influenced 
by it. Nervous invalids lie most comfortably with 
the head towards the north bringing the direction 
of the nervous current in line with the course of 
terrestrial magnetism. The mineral cyanite ar- 
ranges itself in crystals corresponding so exactly 
to the poles of the earth that it may be used as a 
substitute for the magnetic needle. Like elec- 
tricity it is attraction, repulsion and equilibrium. 
It affects all substances in greater or less degree. 

The Attraction of Cohesion acts upon the 
element of matter to give it form or render it 
material. In different degrees it produces the 
solid liquid and reriform conditions of matter. It 
has been supposed to be identical with gravitation 
and magnetism. It is the same force that pro- 
duces crystallization. It is directly allied to heat 
and convertible by the influence of that force into 
its own form and thence to other modes of action. 



34 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

Chemical Affinity is a modification of cohe- 
sive attraction which acts to unite substances into 
compounds differing very widely from the simple 
mixture of the ingredients. A striking peculiarity 
of chemical affinity is that it can only act between 
definite quantities of substances or exact multiples 
of those quantities. The same law of multiples 
applies to the angles of crystallization and is in 
conformity with the sentiment of Pythagoras that 
" Number is the basis of all things." Taking as a 
standard hydrogen, whose combining equivalent 
is lower than any other substance, a table is formed 
giving the number of parts of the other substances 
which combine with one of hydrogen and these 
numbers are termed their chemical equivalents. 
Light and heat are the sources of chemical affinity 
and it produces those forms of force in combustion, 
or in slower action as in the slacking of lime. It 
is also the direct source of electricity with which 
it evinces plainly compensative mutual converti- 
bility. In the decomposition of water chemical 
affinity disappears and electricity is manifested. 
In treating of vital force it will be seen that 
chemical affinity directly produces that form of 
active power. It also produces magnetism when 
the lines of combination are in definite direction. 
Its action produces motion in the substances 
which unite. It is influenced by electricity and 
like light is a form of that force in the state of 
equilibrium and if the equilibrium is destroyed 
chemical affinity appears as positive and negative 



GRAVITY, MOTION. 35 

electricity by decomposition analagous to that 
by which oxygen and hydrogen are derived from 
water. 

Catalysis is an agent for rendering chemical 
affinity active. The force so developed may be 
converted to the other forces by first changing it 
to a voltaic form. 

Capillary Attraction endosmosis and absorp- 
tion are but modes of action of other forms of 
force. 

Gravitation is that which gives to matter the 
quality of uniting into immense masses by reason of 
a tendency in all bodies to approach other bodies 
in proportion to the amount of matter they con- 
tain. It is cohesion on a mammoth scale and 
acting at unlimited distances with a force inversely 
proportional to the square of the distance. By 
reason of the consciousness of effort to overcome 
its action it gives to bodies on our earth the 
quality of affecting our minds in an impression 
which we call weight which is the measure of the 
earth's attraction upon terrestial objects. It is 
the force which produces the motions and regu- 
lates the positions of the systems of suns planets 
and worlds as well as of comets and meteors. It 
is convertible into the other forms of force through 
the motion which it induces. 

The only exception that appears to exist to the 
law of exact quantitative economy of force, is in 
the law of gravitation by which it acts upon sub- 
stances with a power proportioned to the square 



36 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

of the distance. To make it in conformity to the 
great universal law of economy we must discover 
some effect produced by it as it passes through 
space in proportion to the loss or decrease of its 
force. The only means of accounting for this 
loss so far as I can conceive is to trace its relation 
or conversion into space as intimated in the first 
chapter of this work or to consider that like light 
its rays diverge as they proceed from their source. 

Inertia is the conservation of force in the form 
of motion until by the arrest of that motion it is 
restored to the world in some other form. 

Mechanical Motion or the movement of 
bodies is in many respects so different from other 
forms of force as to occasion a little difficulty in 
conceiving its identity with them, but observation 
shows that force may exist in that form, being 
expended to produce it, and reappearing upon its 
arrest. Its quantitative relation to heat has been 
given. The eternal persistence of force is seen in 
the impossibility of arresting motion save by means 
that produce other motion, or other forms of force. 
The element of force in its various forms is so 
strictly immaterial in its nature that the best con- 
ception of it of which we are capable is that it is 
like motion, as all our conceptions of unfamiliar 
things involve the necessity of likening them to 
things better known. 

The peculiarity of the action of chemical affinity 
between multiples of the lowest combining 
equivalent has raised a hypothesis that matter is 



CORRELATION. 37 

composed of minute atoms or molecules and it has 
been assumed that the forces light heat and elec- 
tricity act upon these atoms by producing a shiv- 
ering motion in them and that chemical affinity 
cohesion and similar forces are attraction between 
these atoms. The atomic theory does not necessa- 
rily conflict with the doctrines of the dependent 
trinity and economy of mind matter and force, 
but it is a pure hypothesis, and it seems likely 
that with a better understanding of the triune na- 
ture of the principle of matter we may attain 
correct views of the reciprocal relations between 
matter and force which shall enable us to account 
for the operation of the law of multiples in chemi- 
cal affinity, and crystalline angles from the same 
cause, and independent of the atomic theory. The 
phenomena of isomeric substances can be more rea- 
sonably explained by assuming that the element 
of matter is differently affected by force than by 
assuming a different arrangement of atoms which 
so far as we know could not produce the effects 
which distinguish diamond from charcoal or starch 
from sugar, and which, if present, must be the 
effect of a change in the forces acting upon those 
substances. 

The preceding remarks upon some forms of force 
show the correlation of the Physical Forces a law 
of the greatest importance to science and to art. 
It is generally accepted by modern philosophers. 
The next chapter will be devoted to vital force. 



III. 



VITAL FORCE. 

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE ORGANIC LIFE— ANIMAL LIFE- 
ORIGIN— CORRELA TION— ESSENTIAL 
CONDITIONS. 

" Know thyself " was written over the portals 
of the temples of Greece as the most appropriate 
decoration of those magnificent structures of ancient 
art. " All our knowledge is ourselves to know ; " 
the highest application of all knowledge is to de- 
rive from it the laws of our own mental physical 
and moral being. Every individual of our race 
whether rich or poor high or low, may justly ex- 
press and endorse that noble sentiment " I am a 
man, and whatever pertains to mankind interests 
me." If it is true in a social sense that " one-half 
the world do not know how the other half live," 
it is doubly true in a more literal sense that the 
greater part of the people in the world have not 
the slightest conception of how their own individual 
existence is continued. In view of the great value 



VITAL FORCE. 39 

placed upon human life and its universal posses- 
sion by all classes it is remarkable that this subject 
has received so little attention from the human 
race and it illustrates the advance in science in 
accordance with the law of progress by which sub- 
jects are investigated in a certain natural order of 
succession, from the plain and material to the more 
obscure and spiritual, without any reference to the 
importance of the different branches. The natural 
sciences are justly favorites with the highest order 
of philosophers. From the storehouse of nature 
are drawn many examples of the wisdom and be- 
nevolence of its author, many awful revelations of 
the grandeur and majesty of his handiwork of the 
highest interest to his creatures. Thus astrono- 
mers and geologists unveil to our view a bright 
immensity of lights on high, which from incompre- 
hensible distances shed through space a spark that 
marks to our finite sight their being, and our earth 
a single individual of the mighty train, forever 
walking in her appointed path with iron frame and 
heart of fire, bearing in her hand storms and thun- 
ders, with seas for her attire and floating clouds 
gemmed with meteoric lights and flashing light- 
nings for her veil. From the countless worlds 
which move majestically through the realms of 
space, to the tiniest dewdrop that sparkles in the 
sun, nothing can be found in nature more inter- 
esting curious and important than that form of 
force which we call life ; the source of the highest 
beauty of nature and an essential characteristic of 



40 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS 

the crowning excellence of creation, man, in the 
image of his Maker and endued with the breath 
of the Eternal. 

Man is an epitome of the universe and in more 
than one sense " Self-knowledge is all knowledge/* 
as fully to comprehend our being, necessitates an 
understanding of the whole realm of creation. 
Nature like man is an image of Deity and natural 
laws apply to our existence. 

Those who have devoted their lives to the study 
of vital phenomena find that every discovery opens 
to view a new vista of unexplored possibilities 
beyond, while the hundreds of false theories that 
have prevailed in the past lead us to advance cau- 
tiously in this field and question every doubtful 
hypothesis closely before venturing to accept it as 
established truth. Until a comparatively recent 
date the arteries as their name still indicates were 
supposed to conduct air because empty after death. 
We may form some conception of the theories of 
vitality in the successive eras of the past, from the 
fact that nearly every organ, and part of the body 
has in its turn been considered " The seat of the 
soul.'* The heart, lungs, liver, spleen, pancreas, dia- 
phragm, blood, pineal gland, &c, have each been 
accepted and rejected as the source of life, until 
now we are able to trace vital manifestations to 
the brain, and demonstrate that every other organ 
of the economy is but subservient to the condi- 
tions necessary for its action. 



VITAL FORCE. 41 

The brain, is the center of the nervous system 
consisting of nerves of general and special sense 
motion and organic life. It is securely enclosed in 
the cranium and sends nerves through the spinal 
cord to every part of the system. It also sends 
off twelve pairs through the openings of the cra- 
nium called cranial nerves and^ these include the 
nerves of the four special senses."* It consists of 
two hemispheres exact counterparts of each other 
and each hemisphere presents two principal lobes 
called the cerebrum and cerebellum, the former oc- 
cupying the superior and Jthe latter the inferior 
portions of the cranial cavity. In man the 
cerebrum is much larger than the cerebellum. 
The medulla oblongata connects the brain with 
the spinal cord and in it the fibres from the 
brain cross to the opposite side. The brain 
substance consists of certain salts principally 
phosphates dissolved in water with fat and 
albumen. It presents an external gray cellular 
substance, protected from contact with the cra- 
nium by the meninges or membranes of the brain, 
and an internal fibrous structure. These structures 
are analagous to the bark and wood^of trees. In 
the spinal cord the grey cellular substance is in- 
ternal. The Great Sympathetic system of nerves 

* The names of the cranial nerves are : ist. Pair Olfactory. 2d. Optic. 
3rd. Motores Occulorem. 4th. Patheticus. 5th. Trifacial. 6th. Abducens. 
7th. Facial. 8th. Auditory. 9th. Glossopharyngeal. 10th. Par vagum. nth. 
Spinal accessory. 12th. Hypoglossal. 

The names of the cranial nerves and their order by numbers by which they 
are often designated may be conveniently remembered by the correspondence 
of the first letters of their names to the first letters of the words in the following 
couplet : *---.. jfrjjjifeaa 

" On old Monadnocks perennial tops, ggjggj 
A Finn and German picked some hops. 



42 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

or the nerves of organic life have several centres 
called ganglia (knots) upon the organs of digestion 
respiration &c. and branches are distributed from 
these to parts which act independently of the wilL 
The structure of the great sympathetic resembles 
the grey matter of the spinal cord and is intimately 
connected with it. Both the anatomical arrange- 
ment, and observation of disease and injury, as 
well as experiment upon the lower animals shows 
that the white substance of the brain supplies the 
force necessary for the operation of the nerves 
of motion and sensation which are distributed 
from it to every part of the body, and that the 
grey substance is the seat of the intellect ; while 
the great sympathetic system controls the involun- 
tary functions. Such are essentially the elements 
of the nervous system in all animals with modifi- 
cations to adapt it to the various degrees of intel- 
ligence and activity in different species. In all 
species the great sympathetic is present being 
essential to organic animal life. 

Life, says Bichat, "is the aggregate of the forces 
which resist death." Death is the cessation of 
the vital function, which permits the living struc- 
ture which has withstood, through the protection 
of the vital forces the chemical tendency always 
existing to decay, to gain the mastery over the 
structure and decompose it into its elements. It 
is dissolution. A peculiarity of the vital force, 
which serves to distinguish it from every other 
kind of force, is shown in the faculty or power 



VITAL FORCE. 43 

possessed by all classes of living things to repro- 
duce other structures, exact counterparts of the 
parent in all important particulars and often in 
the higher classes of animal life exact models of 
the original, and themselves capable of propaga- 
ting other offspring and thus continuing the species 
indefinitely. Organic life is that which originates 
and developes organic bodies, controlling their 
growth and repair. It is common to both animals 
and vegetables. The science which treats of the 
functions of animal bodies in health is named 
Physiology, of Vegetable Life, Vegetable Physi- 
ology or Botany. 

Organic life is aided by the forces of light, heat, 
chemical affinity, etc., to such an extent that it 
sometimes appears to be little more than the 
operation of those forces, yet if it is destroyed we 
see the structure of the plant or animal left to the 
control of those forces alone, immediately com- 
mencing to disorganize its structure and ceasing 
growth and repair. Hence every organic body 
represents in itself while living not only the mat- 
ter which it possesses in common with dead organic 
remains, and the chemical forces which have acted 
in building it up, but also a certain vital principle 
which, while it has not done the whole work of 
building up the body and repairing its constantly 
occurring disintegrations, has yet organized and 
controlled the forces at work as the general 
arranges and controls his troops for action, with- 
out himself personally accomplishing- the object 



44 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

to be attained by his own working or fighting 
power. As to the origin of this peculiar force 
that superintends organic functions, it has been 
supposed that the germ contains a hidden, dor- 
mant principle of life, received from the parent, 
that developes into the force necessary for the 
future organic functions. It seems more probable 
that the seed only contains the peculiar principle 
that decides what is to be the type or kind of the 
future plant or animal, and that for the common 
principle of organic life possessed by all living 
things we are to look to those conditions that we 
see necessary to the growth and vitality of every 
species. Thus we may have a perfect seed and all the 
elements necessary to the construction of a perfect 
plant, but withqut the combined effects of moisture 
and the light and heat of the sun there will be no 
organic development. We must then consider 
the source of the force of vegetable life to be the 
light and heat of the sun, and the soluble elements 
for chemical affinity of a kind to produce the 
necessary structure, together with the seed to 
supply the primary controlling influence and 
decide the character and type of the growth. 

The seed of the plant is the result of the contact 
of the pollen with the ovary of the flowers. In 
some species the male and female organs are on 
the same stock or even in the same flower, but 
frequently they are on separate plants and de- 
pendent upon chance for their union. In the corn 
the pollen is upon the tassel while it must come 



VITAL FORCE. 45 

in contact with the ovary by traversing the very 
minute tube leading through the center of each 
silk of the corn to produce each kernel. Here we 
have what appears to be a mutual attraction act- 
ing to produce the necessary union, and in the 
seed this attraction is replaced by a force which 
gives to the seed its very wonderful properties 
which we describe as its polarity, or quality of 
possessing poles, whereof one is positive, and the 
other negative, with reference to sunlight, which 
causes the stem to grow upward, and the root to 
grow downwards, a vital effect of no little impor- 
tance to the plant. 

In advancing from the organic life of the plant 
to that of the animal, we find that while animal 
bodies grow and develope in much the same man- 
ner as plants, we have here a greater variety of 
elements for the action of chemical affinity by 
reason of the greater facilities for obtaining and 
selecting nutriment ; a more perfect digestive 
respiratory and circulatory system, in most cases 
a more uniform temperature, by means of the 
heat-producing powers of the animal, and above 
all a more perfect and efficient controlling vital 
principle in the force of the nervous system of 
organic animal life, so that, while in the most 
favorable climates of the tropics we find vegetable 
life far more perfect and luxuriant than in the 
polar regions, in consequence of more light and 
heat from the sun, we have in the products of 
animal growth a class of compounds and structures 



46 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

infinitely more complicated and perfect than can 
be found in the inanimate world, which would 
entitle it to the rank of a higher branch of the 
creation, independently of its connection with the 
higher powers of animal life. As the vital func- 
tions are ever acting by reducing living tissues to 
dead effete matter which is eliminated from the 
system, the seemingly anomalous definition of life 
that it is constant death is correct, although we 
make a distinction between the disintegration of 
tissues, while their place is immediately replaced 
by the new elements taken from external sources 
and the cessation of growth and repair allowing 
the whole organism to decompose. 

The most important use of the vegetable king- 
dom is its subserviency to the support of the 
animal kingdom. The plant sends down its root 
into the earth and spreads out its leaves in the air 
to take the crude forms of matter and fit them for 
the use of the more complicated machinery of the 
animal organism. As the animal fabric is depend- 
ent upon the vegetable world for its support, it is 
also the means of itself maintaining and developing 
a higher form of force. 

Leaving organic life and advancing to the con- 
sideration of animal life, we observe that while 
animal bodies are only more perfect plants than 
are found in the vegetable kingdom, when con- 
sidered simply with reference to their origin, 
and development; yet, animals are distinguished 
from plants by a principle entirely distinct from 



VITAL FORCE. 47 

anything exhibited outside of the animal kingdom 
by which they are enabled to feel and move. 

Animal life consists of two distinct properties, 
Irritability and Excitement. 

Irritability, the " tonic power" of Stahl, is that 
property of muscular power which enables it to 
respond to the action of certain stimuli. Muscu- 
lar tissue consists of bundles of fibres arranged so 
as by their contraction, or shortening, they effect 
the motions of which the body is capable. Muscles 
are divided into two general classes; first, those 
of organic life, as in the heart and in the digestive 
system, or the muscles of respiration. These are 
also called muscles of involuntary motion. Sec- 
ondly, those of animal life, comprising those muscles 
subservient to the will known as muscles of volun- 
tary motion. In some instances muscles receive 
nerves of each kind and are termed mixed, as in 
respiration, which we may partially control by 
the will. 

The ability to contract under the influence of 
the nervous stimulus is itself a vital property, and 
is as necessary to motion as the stimulus itself. 
The muscular system derives this force from dis- 
integration in the muscles of nitrogenous com- 
pounds derived from the blood. It remains for 
a few hours after death, and is followed by a state 
of tonic contraction of every muscle in the system, 

known as rigor mortis. This is always in propor- 
tion to the strength of the muscular system at 



48 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

the time of death, those who die from lingering, 
debilitating diseases exhibiting least of it. 

The blood receives from the digestive system 
the principles from the vegetable world, either 
directly or after they have been first submitted to 
the action of the digestive pro.cess of other animals 
and converted into animal tissue. All animal 
nourishment comes from the vegetable kingdom 
if we except those elements derived from the air 
and water. If the vegetable substances are too 
crude for our digestion we get the lower animals 
to help us digest them, but we trace all food to a 
vegetable origin. Now we have seen that the 
plant consists of the elements necessary to form 
its structure, together with the chemical affinity 
necessary to unite those elements into their sev- 
eral compounds and the vital principle of organic 
life. The elements received into the stomach, 
together with the forces acting upon them, either 
continue in the same compounds or else unite 
into other compounds and enter the blood in the 
form of Proximate Principles, which are com- 
pounds in the state in which they exist in the 
animal tissues, such as albumen, starch, fat, phos- 
phate of lime, etc. It is easy to see that the fat 
by union with the oxygen of the blood having its 
affinity destroyed is the direct source of another 
force in its place in the form of heat. Now by 
the disintegration of the muscular fibre another 
form of force is the result which we recognize as 
rritability, a force first developed so far as we can 



VITAL FORCE. 49 

trace it in the plant, as the result of the light and 
heat of the sun. Dr. Brown Sequard proved that 
the irritability of muscular fibre is a vital princi- 
ple dependent upon oxygen in the blood, by 
observing that in a decapitated man, nine hours 
after death, this property of the muscle being lost 
it immediately returned upon injecting fresh arte- 
rial blood into the body, and contraction again 
followed the application of the galvanic current. 

This property of contractility is a form of force 
by which the muscular tissue is enabled to contract 
upon the application of certain stimuli. The stimu- 
lus of the galvanic or electric current will produce 
this result. Galvanism is the result of chemical 
affinity, and is generated by the action of an acid 
upon the metals, copper and zinc, in the common 
battery, and although capable of contracting mus- 
cular fibre is not the agent employed in the living 
economy. 

We have found the brain composed of certain 
substances, conspicuous among which we ob- 
served the phosphates, while the other substances 
composing it served the purpose of preserving 
these in a suitable form to be acted upon gradu- 
ally by the action of the blood. We also find that 
while the human brain constitutes but one-fortieth 
part by weight of the entire system it receives 
one-sixth of all the blood, or more than six times 
its average share, showing the great relative im- 
portance of its functions. We also observe that 
it sends branches principally through the spinal 



50 .[IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

cord to every part of the system, and that when 
certain of those branches which we recognize as 
nerves of motion are divided all powers of moving 
is removed from the parts beyond the point of 
division to which these nerves are distributed, 
and that disease or injury of the brain may pro- 
duce the same effect. These facts are quite 
sufficient to demonstrate that the exciting cause 
of motion in the voluntary muscles is an influence 
or force generated in the brain, and conducted by 
the nervous filaments. Further observation in 
disease, as well as the anatomical arrangement of 
the parts concerned, demonstrates that the white, 
fibrous structure of the interior of the brain pro- 
duces this form of force. 

It is also found that the vital processes that 
take place in the brain during the performance of 
this function consist in the breaking up of affinity 
or disintegration of the phosphates of its structure 
and that the phosphates after being so acted upon 
by the oxygen of the blood are eliminated by the 
excretory system in the form of simple binary corn- 
pounds. There is a marked analogy between this 
process and that which takes place in the battery 
for the production of the galvanic influence. It 
is not, however, more rational to suppose this in- 
fluence identical with that of the battery than to 
assume the same with regard to animal heat, or 
the irritability of muscle, for the process of the 
production of those forms of force is equally simi- 
lar to it. It is not originated or conducted by the 



VITAL FORCER 51 

same means as the galvanic current, which passes 
metalic substances freely, while by taking hold of 
a wire we are hardly able to communicate to it 
the nervous power. These distinctions would be 
sufficient to entitle it to recognition as a distinct 
form of force, but there is another more important 
distinction ; the nervous influence is capable of 
certain reactions with the mental quality of the 
individual through the will, a subject that will be 
again referred to in its appropriate place. Like the 
other forms of force this may be directly traced 
through the elements and compounds of nutrition 
to the light and heat of the sun acting in the 
plant, and like animal heat and irritability it is 
the result of a process excited by the action of 
the oxygen received in respiration. The vital 
force was dormant in the form of chemical affinity 
until that was broken up by the union of oxygen, 
just as the explosion is latent in the gunpowder 
until by union with oxygen it is developed. 

The exciting force or stimulus of the nerves of 
organic life or involuntary motion, is distinct from 
that of voluntary motion. This is a property re- 
siding in the system of ganglia, known as the 
great sympathetic nerve having its center in the 
gray matter of the interior of the spinal cord 
where a store of this force is in reserve to keep up 
the action of this system during temporary emer- 
gency. In certain cases, as of asphyxia or fainting 
(syncope), when the functions of animal life are sus- 
pended from a deficiency of the supply of oxygen 



52 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

or other cause, those of organic life, breathing, 
animal heat, pulsation of the heart, etc., are capa- 
ble of supporting a feeble action for a considerable 
time in consequence of this reserve of force. 
Stimulants exhaust this reserve force, and hence 
reduce the powers of vitality. The influence from 
the great sympathetic nerves does not appear to 
be so distinct and independent a force as the 
nervous influence from the brain to the nerves of 
voluntary motion. It rather has the property of 
modifying the irritability of the muscular fibres 
of organic life so as to cause them to respond to 
common irritation or the contact of any irritating 
substance. Thus the contact of the food with the 
coats of the stomach excites the activity of that 
organ in digestion, and produces the abundant 
secretion of the gastric juice observed after a re- 
past. The contact of the blood with the muscular 
cavities of the heart excites that organ to a con- 
traction; the presence of any irritating substance 
in the respiratory or nasal passages, or digestive 
canal, produces an excessive secretion ; heat excites 
perspiration, thus enabling the system to maintain 
an equal temperature. In every case in which the 
involuntary or organic system is active there ap- 
pears some exciting cause, of which the nerves of 
the great sympathetic are only the guiding agency 
like the principle of organic life in the plant, 
guiding and directing the forces that under fts 
influence perform the work of the organic func- 
tions. If the vital functions of growth and repair 



VITAL FORCE. 53 

were under the control of the will, sleep or for- 
getfulness would result in death. All animals 
have the system of organic life and are capable of 
reflex motion, while in some of the lower types 
of animate nature it is impossible to recognize 
any other form of force. They appear to be as 
destitute of conscious voluntary life as the human 
stomach. Recent histological observations seem 
to demonstrate a further source of animal and 
organic force from the direct disappearance of 
heat, that force by virtue of its correlation with 
the vital force disappearing, and by its disappear- 
ance eliminating an equivalent amount of nervous 
power. Liebig affirms that while there is not a 
uniform relation between the urea, the product of 
the disintegration of muscular tissue, and the 
amount of muscular action performed, by extend- 
ing the comparison to the carbonic acid exhaled 
as the measure of the animal heat produced, and 
taking this as the expression of an amount of force 
which, by a knowledge of its quantitative relation 
to mechanical motion we are able to estimate, the 
muscular force is accounted for and the law of the 
compensation of forces is demonstrated. 

It appears also that the muscles of organic life 
are the principal recipients of this force, and it 
may be inferred that the nerves of this system 
exercise some influence in effecting the change of 
heat to working power. In the disintegrating 
process of germination and growth in plants a 
similar elimination of carbonic acid takes place, as 



54 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS 

a result of the production of an amount of heat 
which is very sensibly observed in the sprouting 
of barley in the manufacture of malt. This heat 
in the ordinary growth of the seed is, as Dr. Car- 
penter observes, probably a source of a portion of 
the organizing force of the plant. 

The essential conditions for the operation 
of animal life are supplied by the digestive, circula- 
tory and respiratory functions, which form a sys- 
tem that furnishes a striking illustration of the 
law of dependent trinity. The digestive system 
receives the substances necessary for the growth 
and repair of the structures of the body, and con- 
verts them into blood ; the respiratory system 
supplies the blood with oxygen, by reason of the 
affinity of oxygen for iron, one of the elements of 
the blood; and the circulatory system carries the 
blood where it is needed, and by making it a ve- 
hicle for the conveyance of oxygen from the lungs 
and of carbonic acid from the system preserves 
the purity and vitality of the economy. 

In all species, of both animal and vegetable 
structures, these essential functions exist with 
various modifications to adapt them to the several 
species. In fishes the oxygen is received from 
the water passing in contact with the highly vas- 
cular surface of the brachia, but no "animal lives 
without a due supply of oxygen. The various 
degrees of vital force, as well as of mental power 
existing in different individuals of the same spe- 
cies, in different species, and even in the same 



VITAL FORCE. 55 

individuals at different times, prove a direct rela- 
tion not only between the nervous system and its 
activities, but exhibit the complete correspondence 
between the essential conditions for the operation 
of the forces of animal life and their manifestations. 
The practical deduction from this is, that by the 
preservation of the functions of digestion respira- 
tion and circulation with their auxiliaries of secre- 
tion, absorption, elimination, assimilation, etc., in 
a state of normal activity, and by a due supply of 
fresh air and proper food, we may increase in our 
systems or in animals the quantity of vital force, 
not by actual creation, but at the expense of the 
great fountains of strength from which we are 
permitted to draw, the physical structures and 
forces of nature. We may thus attain to that 
desirable desideratum, a sound mind in a sound 
body. " Mens sana in sana corpora." 

Further observation of the forces of life shows 
that in their various forms of action they are 
mutually correlated and convertible. Excessive 
mental application by directing the vital current 
to the production of ideas, draws from the supply 
that would otherwise be used by those functions 
and weakens muscular power and the digestive 
system. Excessive muscular exertion produces 
less perfect activity of the mind; severe pain, by 
expending the vital force in sensation, often in- 
duces fainting and always prostrates the powers 
of the system, and in general the activity of any 
function beyond the natural limits consistent with 



5$6 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

the equilibrium of the system detracts from the 
force of other functions. This correlative con- 
vertibility applies further to the manifestations of 
-the mind in different forms, as memory, passion 
and reason. 

Having now examined the doctrines of the cor- 
relation of the forces you are prepared to step into 
a buggy and take a drive, and know that the 
motion of the vehicle expended in the heat of 
friction upon the earth and the axles, and in 
mechanical motion of the atmosphere or sound, is 
the direct result of the vital force of the horse, 
derived by conversion from the chemical affinity 
,and organic force or life of the straw and proven- 
.der on which the beast was fed, and that the 
primary source of these was light and heat of the 
sun ; or, if more convenient to take the steam cars, 
you can trace their motion through fuel, either of 
recent or remote growth, to the same source, and 
you may trace all motion and force to the same 
origin. After you ride we will proceed to the 
interesting subject of the mental and moral forces 
^of the Universe, the image of the — 

u Eternal one, whose presence bright 
All space doth occupy ; all motion guide. ' 



IV. 



MENTAL FORCE. 



MIND— QUALITIES— LA WS— CORRELA TION— CONSERVA TION 

—PSYCHOLOGY AND MESMERISM— LOWER ANIMALS 

AND MAN— DEPENDENCE. 



As the mineral kingdom and physical forces 
in nature develope the vegetable and that sup- 
ports the animal kingdom, so irritability and 
excitement or animal life furnishes the conditions 
which eliminate a higher form of force called 
mind, attended with consciousness and sentimen- 
tality. Mind is in itself independent of time or 
space, and reaches to the utmost limit of the 
universe as quickly as to less remote regions, 
although the organs for its exercise require more 
or less time to act. Mind furnishes the source of 
that pov/er which has been felt through all the 
ages of the past, which controls the world's ever 
changing succession of wars, enterprises, and 
revolutions in the present, and is destined to have 
sovereign control through all eternity. It fur- 
nishes the means; for the development of the 



58 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

immortal soul, the highest created existence, and 
is one element of that triune being. It is directly- 
correlated to the physical forces and accomplishes 
the office of a force in the highest sense of the 
word. It has been observed to be the controlling 
agent of the voluntary motions of animal life. 

There is good reason to believe that, like mat- 
ter and physical force, mind is in itself a definite 
unity and that all its manifestations are but the 
varied exhibitions of this force, differently mani- 
fested as a result of different relations, from cir- 
cumstances capable of affecting the manner or 
form of its manifestations. 

The activity of the organs by which it manifests 
its operations are distinctly traced to the same 
source as those of other forms of force in nature, 
namely, the sun. 

We have traced the exciting cause of the vol- 
untary muscular contraction to a force eliminated 
in the white fibrous structure of the brain as the 
result of disintegration of the phosphates. Now 
the gray cellular substance of the external part of 
the brain is also rich in these salts, and observa- 
tion shows that study and mental activity decom- 
pose them even more than physical exertion those 
of the white fibrous structure. The secretions 
eliminated by the clergyman on Monday, or by 
the lawyer after an earnest and elaborate plea, 
are evidences of this fact. Every thought elimi- 
nated by the brain is the effect of a physical 
change in its gray substance precisely analagous 



MEMORY. 59 

to the change in the white structure by which the 
vital nervous force is set free. Every feeling and 
emotion is attended with the same consequence, 
and the character of the manifestation depends 
upon the organ or portion of the brain that is acted 
upon by the mind. As every action of the brain 
leaves a mark or scar upon its substance, it has 
been supposed that these account for the fact that 
nothing is ever forgotten during life, but every 
thought or emotion may be recalled by a train of 
circumstances capable of directing the mind in the 
same channel. 

As the exterior of the cranium only gives a 
general and indefinite outline of the structure of 
the brain, Phrenology can never become an exact 
science, but is principally of interest in so far as it 
confines itself to the field of mental philosophy. 
As it is observed that any lesion of that portion 
of the nervous system known as the nerves of 
voluntary motion destroys the power of motion, 
so it is found that any affection of the mento- 
cerebral apparatus affects the manifestation of the 
mind, and slight compression of the brain, or an 
insufficient supply of arterial blood (oxygen), will 
completely arrest it. 

The intimate relations between the mind and 
the body are of intense interest to every scientific 
mind, and there has been no little difficulty in 
tracing this connection and discovering the pre- 
cise point at which the mysterious link that unites 
the two is to be found. 



60 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

The influence is reciprocal, and in considering 
the subjects of mesmerism and psychology I shall 
show how mind acts upon matter, in the body 
and elsewhere, while here I will explain the con- 
verse action of matter upon mind. It has already 
been demonstrated that we cannot conceive mi:,d 
to exist without something about which to think 
or independently of matter and force. Now, in 
describing the nervous system of man, it will be 
remembered that reference was made to nerv r es of 
sensation, general and special. 

The senses are feeling, smelling, tasting, seeing 
and hearing. The nerves of the sense of feeling 
accompany those of voluntary motion to the spinal 
cord, where they are given off in the same manner 
as the former, and by a similar arrangement are 
distributed to every part of the system, but more 
densely upon the surface, and, in highly sensitive 
surfaces, than elsewhere. These nerves plainly 
convey to the brain and through that to the mind 
impressions of the form, density, size, tempera- 
ture etc., of qualities of objects brought in 
direct contact, but except by material connection 
can produce no impression. 

Here the impression seems to be an efifeci pro- 
duced by the operation of the forces of the object 
transmitted to the mind, but if any change takes 
place in the object, as a result of this impression, 
it has not yet been discovered. That the impres- 
sion is conveyed by these nerve:, is plain, as in 
the other cases of motion and special sense, from 



SENSE. 6l 

the fact that any lesion of these nerves serves to 
directly and entirely destroy the function assigned 
to them, rhe uses of tasting and smelling are 
only modificat ons of the sense of feeling; a modi- 
fication dependent to a great extent upon the 
character of i e sensitive surfaces of the tongue 
and Schnrderi membrane. These senses act so 
much in common that if smell is impaired we are 
ajle only . imperfectly to decide delicate 

flavors by . done. The sensation from any 

acrid or y : substance upon the tongue or 

nasal mem! clearly resembles the impression 

produced its contact with a highly sensitive 

surface, i v. .n the cuticle is removed. The 
sense oi' s is entirely distinct from the former 

three. It is :- to receive impressions of objects 
at a distance convey acknowledge of their color, 

form, et( < ich impressions are not perceptible 
to any o se. The anatomy of the eye leads 

us to con: us impression the result of the 

contact ol h of light proceeding from the 

object to retina. I am inclined to suspect 

this is onl) a part of the process, and that there 
is some as yet undiscovered influence originated 
in the brai^ that is sent from the eye to the ob- 
ject, fro;., a apparent or real consciousness of 
such an action taking place. 

Like sight, hearing takes cognizance of impres- 
sions unobserved in ordinary intensity by the 
otner senses. These are the impressions of sound 
or mechanical vibrations of the atmosphere. By 



62 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS 

the agency of these five senses the mind receives 
the impressions which bring it into relation with 
external objects, and are the food from which it 
derives the elements that it converts into the pas- 
sions, reason, imagination, hope, fear and in short 
all the mental attributes. We can trace the various 
steps of change in the mind by which these sensa- 
tions are able to produce all the varied effects with 
almost as much exactness as we can trace effect 
and results in the physical world. The mind is 
affected directly by matter and force. The fur- 
ther affection of mental manifestations by material 
and physical agencies is shown in the fact that its 
operations are always in direct proportion to the 
conditions of the brain itself, a material organ, 
and the requisites for the action of the physical 
forces which produce mental action. Education 
advances mentality by improving its machinery. 
To investigate and understand our powers of 
mind and the methods of exercising them, are 
duties to which science assists us, and interest 
impels us. We observe a close relation between 
the mind and the functions of organic life. A few 
illustrations will show that this influence is of no 
little importance, and establish a correlative in- 
fluence compensating for that received from the 
material world upon the mind. The functions of 
animal life are under the direct control of the will. 
The action of the mind upon the involuntary 
organic functions is seen in the excitement of the 
heart in consequence of any violent emotion, the 



MIND AND BODY. 63 

hurried breathing under the influence of strong 
passions, the flow of the tears in grief, or exces- 
sive joy, or mirthfulness, the activity of the di- 
gestive organs in contentment and cheerfulness, 
and their torpor in melancholy or grief. The 
perspiration of the axilla immediately acquires a 
peculiar offensive odor in consequence of the 
emotion of bashfulness; melancholy produces an 
offensive odor of the feet ; insanity has its charac- 
teristic odor ; violent emotions, as of anger in the 
mother, vitiate the secretion of milk so as to produce 
cramps, convulsions and even death of the nursing 
infant. Cheerfulness and contentment exhibit 
their happy effects in blooming health, while re- 
morse, anxiety and despair mark their victims 
with haggard aspect and emaciated frame, and 
finally consign them to the grave. Home-sick- 
ness has in some cases had the same effect. Vio- 
lent grief by inducing an acid secretion of the 
hair follicles, has been known to blanch the raven 
locks of youth in a single night to the silvery 
whiteness of old age. 

Directing the attention to almost any organ or 
part of the body will induce there an unpleasant 
sensation. Those who have made a special study 
of any part of the system have often died from 
disease of that part, as in the case of Harvey, 
who discovered the circulation of the blood and 
died from disease of the heart. Persons who are 
but little occupied, leading luxurious and indolent 
lives, feel many infirmities from which they 



64 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

escape upon being driven by necessity to a more 
active life. 

These and many other similar phenomena are 
readily accounted for by a careful consideration of 
the facts already stated, and an application of the 
general laws of compensation and unity of which 
these are examples. This action of the mind upon 
organic and material structures, taken in connec- 
tion with the action of matter and physical force 
upon mind, is the mysterious link that connects 
the mind with the body, and makes plain the na- 
ture of that numerous class of affections of so 
much interest to all who attend to disease, which 
are classed as hysterical and nervous affections, 
wherein through loss of control by the will over 
the distribution of the mental and vital force its 
manifestations are of an abnormal and often 
alarming character. 

Pursuing the subject of will and mental influ- 
ence, we observe that it is not confined to the 
individual alone. Certain involuntary organic 
actions are capable of being excited in susceptible 
temperaments by witnessing them in others. Hys- 
teria and fainting are often observed to be com- 
municated in this way. Yawning is also induced 
by the same means, but for this effect it is neces- 
sary that the persons shall be friends, who are 
interested in and fond of each other. This influ- 
ence, which might be considered very trifling in 
itself, leads to a subject of great interest and im- 
portance in the various manifestations of charming, 



CHARMING. 65 

will-power, mesmerism, psychology, electro-psy- 
chology and kindred influences so very remarkable 
as to constitute an appropriate branch of science 
by themselves. It has long been observed that 
animals possess the power of charming in certain 
cases, as that of the fox or the serpent charming 
the bird, and probably the cat, the hawk and 
many other animals have this power over certain 
other animals; it has also been admitted that man 
has the power of controlling fierce animals by the 
power of the will acting through the eye, but 
until the discoveries of M. Mesmer little that was 
definite or exact was known, by modern philoso- 
phers in civilized countries, of the power of charm- 
ing possessed by man over those of his own kind. 
This gentleman accidentally discovered, while 
soothing his child, that he had induced a remarka- 
ble and interesting state, in which the child was 
under his control independently of any manifesta- 
tion of his will by the usual mode of communica- 
tion, and as he had, while inducing this effect, 
stroked the child's head downwards, he very 
logically concluded that stroking it upwards would 
destroy the effect, a means that in accordance with 
his wishes was quite successful. M. Mesmer after- 
wards induced this state in many others, and gave 
his name to that form of charming known as 
mesmerism. It is probable from the accounts 
that reach us of the performances of the Oriental 
jugglers and magicians that this science has been 
even more fully developed among them than 



66 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

among more civilized nations, and that they are 
in the habit of employing it upon both men and 
animals, particularly serpents. When we consider 
that in its various forms this power is ever active 
in society ; that the charms of music and oratory 
are but exhibitions of it; that it is closely con- 
nected with the social and family relations, and that 
it is a power given us by our Creator to use wisely, 
and capable of extending our powers for good or 
evil, we may well esteem it a proper field for 
scientific investigation. 

Laying aside the consideration of those familiar 
and common effects of will-power exhibited in 
the government of the family, the school, the 
army and the state, as well as the influence of the 
will over the voluntary acts of the individual let 
us first observe the most perfect operation of the 
the will-power yet r attained, as exercised under 
the names of Psychology or Electro-Psychology 
and Mesmerism. 

The process of inducing this state is not neces- 
sarily uniform by different operators. As this 
power is universally possessed by mankind in va- 
rious degrees, and as I know of no other source 
for obtaining information in regard to its practice, 
I will give here the method employed by many 
expert Psychologists, and which may be employed 
by those disposed to test their powers in this direc- 
tion, observing carefully the cautions given which, 
I think, are sufficient to guard against any un- 
favorable effects. 



DIRECTIONS FOR OPERATING. 67 

In selecting a subject be sure there is no 
tendency to hysteria or other affection likely to 
prove alarming upon nervous excitement. If the 
subject has been previously operated upon the 
state can be induced infinitely easier than if it is 
for the first time. It is also observed that next 
to those who have previously been in this state 
those who have been in the similar state of som- 
nambulism, and particularly those much addicted 
to walking in their sleep, are most easily affected. 
Having decided these questions favorably the first 
step is to be sure the subject is entirely willing to 
be influenced — not barely willing to have the 
attempt made, but willing to be put to sleep; for 
unless the wills of the two persons act in unison 
it will not be easy for the operator to succeed, if 
not, indeed, quite impossible. This point being 
decided, let the operator seat himself opposite the 
subject and take lightly hold of his hands, with 
the fingers resting in the palms of the subject's 
hands and the balls of the thumbs pressed against 
those of the subject. Let the two persons look 
each other directly in the eyes; the eyes are 
brought within two feet of each other. Let the 
operator, by an effort of the will, excite and direct 
to the subject the nervous influence, and exercise 
a determination to succeed in inducing the psycho- 
logical state while the subject remains passive and 
indifferent. Let nothing occur to distract the 
attention. As soon as the operator observes any 
difficulty in holding the gaze direct by a tendency 



68 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

to rolling of the eyes, let him pass the hands, sim- 
ultaneously or in quick succession, to the forearm, 
with the fingers on the ulnar or little finger side, 
then to the arm below the shoulder, with the 
fingers pressing upon the nerves upon the inside 
of the arm in this region, then to the collar-bone, 
.hen in quick succession to the third cervical ver- 
tebra at the back of the neck and over the head 
without removing them until the palms of the 
hands rest upon the top of the head, then bring 
the balls of the thumbs over the subject's eyes, 
which have been held with a fixed gaze at those 
of the operator until this time, and, bidding the 
subject close the eyes, press gently with the balls 
of the thumbs upon the closed eyelids, while the 
fingers rest upon the top of the head. Take the 
bridge of the nose between the thumb and fore- 
finger of the left hand, with the right hand press- 
ing firmly against the occiput for a moment, then 
make a few passes downwards, near the temples, 
and bring the hands up in curved lines further 
from the subject than they were passed down- 
wards, or stroke the temples downwards and carry 
the hands upwards at a little distance from them; 
with the right hand lightly touching the subject's 
left temple say, with will, " You cannot open your 
eyes; open them if you can; or close your eyes 
firmly and you carit open them," and the first 
and most difficult steps are attained in getting 
control of the voluntary movements of the sub- 
ject's body. As soon as the subject discovers 



DIRECTIONS. 69 

that he cannot open the eyes strike the hands 
together before his face and say, " All right ! " and 
he will probably open them, but if this fails ask 
him if he will not open them, and, after getting 
his consent to do so, repeat the " all right," if 
necessary, and he will respond to the wish of the 
operator and open them. He is now in a state to 
follow the wishes or will of the operator. Let 
the operator look him steadily in the eye and lay 
his hand under the subject's and say, you can't 
remove it. It will be true. Then say you can- 
not get up from your chair, and it will be impos- 
sible for him to arise. After a few experiments 
the operator will be able to control his subject 
even when behind him, out of sight, and without 
the knowledge of the subject compel him to raise 
his arm, to keep it raised or perform other acts in 
compliance with the will of the operator. It is 
unnecessary to illustrate further the control over 
voluntary muscular motion, only adding that it is 
complete. I will mention some examples to show 
the control also over the mental activities. Having 
now obtained control over the voluntary move- 
ments let the operator look the subject again 
steadily in the eye and tell him his coat is on fire, 
and he will see the coat burn as distinctly, at least, 
as in a dream, and attempt to extinguish it. He 
may be freed from this delusion and restored to 
the normal, ordinary use of his senses by the 
same means as are employed to restore him to the 
usual control of his muscular movements in the 



yo IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS* 

other experiments, namely, by the operator clap- 
ping his hands and saying, " All right. " In the 
same manner he may be caused to believe the 
house on fire, himself surrounded by wasps, or to 
see houses, fields, parks, groves, lakes, or other 
objects described to him by the operator. Causing 
the subject to catch fish from an imaginary pond, 
with an imaginary hook and line, or a walking-stick 
substituted for one is a common experiment. Nor 
is the delusion confined to the sense of seeing. 
He may be^ made to hear, smell, taste and feel, 
precisely as if the things described to him were 
real. It is also evident that in this state life may 
be destroyed by causing the subject to think him- 
self dying, as by the delusion that he is drowning, 
actual asphyxia taking place almost as quickly as 
if he was really under water. The familiar case 
of the condemned criminal who was bled to death 
from an imaginary incision in the arm while blind- 
folded, shows also that a firm conviction of death 
is fatal. Having completed the experiments let 
the operator produce some pleasant scene for the 
last, and, after bringing the subject out of the last 
scene, proceed to satisfy himself and the subject 
that he is entirely free from the influence. Take 
hold of his hands and bid him to let the influence 
pass off. Make a few passes upwards and relax 
the action of the will by which he has been held 
in that state, until he is sure he is in his natural 
state. If the subject is last shown an unpleasant 
sight it will leave an unpleasant sensation for a long 



CONTROL OF IMAGINATION. 7 1 

time, perhaps at recurring intervals. Persons 
who have in this state been led to see serpents, 
and then brought out of the state without some 
pleasant impression succeeding that, have often 
started afterwards at imaginary reptiles in their 
path, and the same is true of illusions of wasps, 
bees, etc. The necessity of being thoroughly 
awakened or restored to the ordinary state, and 
completely freed from the influence of the opera- 
tor, is not only to free the subject from lingering 
delusion, but it is observed that persons left par- 
tially under this influence grow nervous and 
melancholy or sentimental. If a person who has 
been in this state shows these symptoms, or is 
pale and feeble, let the operator again place him 
under his influence, as he can readily do after the 
first time, and use more care in freeing him from 
the influence, and the unfavorable effects will dis- 
appear. Upon the first discovery of the power 
being obtained over the subject the operator, if 
timid and unaccustomed to the experiment may 
feel a slight alarm, a feeling which must be con- 
trolled as it is immediately communicated to the 
subject. It is of the greatest importance that the 
operator be able to control himself, and persons 
not able to preserve self-control should not assume 
the office of operator. By watching the expres- 
sion of the mouth of the subject the operator may 
ascertain from a relaxed expression, like that of 
one sleeping, when he has subdued the brain and 
be able to guard against carrying the influence to 



72 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

excess so as to have difficulty in arousing him 
from this state. Let the operator beware of a 
smile by the subject during an experiment, and 
observing that, let him immediately have perfect 
silence, make a few passes down the spine and 
bring the subject into the waking state as quickly 
as possible ; as, otherwise, symptoms might 
ensue which, if not dangerous, would be very 
alarming to an amateur, and consequently inju- 
rious. This is more likely to happen in experi- 
ments in which the sense of hearing is acted upon 
than in affecting delusions of the other sense. 

Lastly, should any unpleasant effects result from 
these experiments by amateurs, let an expert be 
consulted, who will probably be able by himself 
getting control of the subject and bringing him 
out from under his influence, to restore the normal 
condition. 

Dr. Caldwell gives the following directions for 
producing the mesmeric sleep. 

" Let the parties be seated close to each other, 
face to face, the mesmerizer occupying the higher 
seat and the mesmerizee so accommodated as to 
sit at ease and in comfort, provision being made 
for the support of the head in case sleep is induced. 
Having requested the mesmerizee to dismiss, as 
far as practicable, all agitating and impressive 
feelings, thoughts and emotions, and be as tran- 
quil as possible in mind, as well as in body, the 
mesmerizee gently grasps his hands, applying palm 



MESMERISM. 73 

to palm and thumb to thumb for the purpose of 
equalizing and identifying their temperature and 
condition. Continuing this for about a minute 
the mesmerizer lets go his grasp and removing 
his hands, and raising them just above the head 
of the mesmerizee, brings them gently down along 
each side of the head very softly brushing it, and 
places them on his shoulders. Let the hands rest 
there about another minute — the mesmerizer all 
this time looking steadily and intensely in his 
subject's face, and forcibly willing that he shall 
fall asleep. The hands are then to be moved from 
the shoulders along the arms with a very slight 
pressure, until they reach the hands of the mes- 
merizee, which are to be again grasped for four or 
five seconds, as before. After a few repetitions 
of these movements, the operator may begin his 
more regular passes. These he makes by raising his 
hands near to the face or top of his subject's head 
and bringing them down with a gentle sweep 
along the neck and breast (touching those parts 
not being necessary), to the ends of the subject's 
fingers, turning his palms outwards and widening 
the distance of his hands from each other as they 
descend. The ends of the operator's fingers may 
be also advantageously applied at times to the 
pit of the patient's stomach and held there for a 
short time." The passes may be continued for 
from ten to thirty minutes when if sleep is not 
induced a few passes upwards may be made to 
remove any partial or imperceptible effect and 



74 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

further attempts postponed until another time. 
Should the sleep be induced the subject may be 
awakened by upward passes with the mesmerizer 
exercising his will to effect the awakening of the 
subject together with the consent of the mesmeri- 
zee to be awakened. 

In the state of mesmeric sleep the senses of the 
subject are closed to all external impressions so 
that it is impossible to gain his attention save by 
the operator or persons placed by him in commu- 
nication with the subject. The eye ear taste 
smell and touch are at the control of the operator 
as well as the movements of the voluntary muscles* 
In some cases very painful surgical operations 
have been performed without the knowledge of 
the patient yet he hears distinctly all that is said to 
him by the operator and sees all they point out 
whether real or imaginary. The reality of these ef- 
fects cannot be doupted by any who have witnessed 
them and that it is an "ism" is only true of the the- 
ory by which Mesmer and his followers account for 
them. It cannot be doubted that persons have ac- 
quired considerable proficiency in the exerciseof this 
power who have supposed it to be the effect of 3, 
fluid " Animal Magnetism " that passed from the 
operator to the subject. This was the belief of 
Mesmer and prevails to the present day among 
his followers. It is not surprising that with this; 
false view of the subject mesmerism has failed to 
accomplish what its advocates at first predicted 
for it and what the remarkable character of its 



MESMERISM. 75 

phenomena seemed to warrant. For this and 
similar influences we are to look to the purely 
mental forces the will and the imagination, forces 
as immaterial as motion or heat and like them 
formerly erroneously supposed to be of the nature 
of fluids. When chemists discovered the true 
nature of the invisible gasses that they were 
forms of matter they erroneously assumed the 
same to be true of all invisible forces. As expe- 
riments and observations by scientific men have 
served to prove the non-existence of a fluid in the 
case of mesmerism they have often been led to 
dispute the existence of any force in the influence 
instead of recognising its true source, contenting 
themselves with the assertion that the effects were 
imaginary without recognizing the wonderful 
powers of the imagination which they exhibit. 

The commission at Paris of which Benjamin 
Franklin was a member for investigating the claims 
of mesmerism, after finding that a boy blindfolded 
and made to believe he was to be led to a tree 
charged with the mesmeric fluid was thrown into 
the mesmeric state upon being led to another tree 
remote from the one operated upon made a report 
very unfavorable to mesmerism without finding 
the true cause of the phenomenon in the case 
which might have shown the force as active in 
that experiment as if he had been conducted to 
the other tree and made science correspond with 
the facts in the case. 



j6 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

In accordance with this view of mesmerism it is 
observed that in some cases persons have been 
mesmerised when absent from the operator* and 
only conscious of the influence by their sensations. 
Such might be the effect of a purely immaterial 
mental force but not of animal magnetism as 
generally understood. The wonderful effects 
produced by the use of metalic or painted 
wooden :" Tractors" also demonstrate that for 
these and similar effects a firm conviction of their 
reality is sufficient and that imagination conscious- 
ness are correlated to fore. 

There is another class of phenomena which 
illustrate the correlation or convertability of the 
mental and physical force as more strikingly than 
any examples yet referred to. There are many 
thousands of persons now livingwhohave witnessed 
the feats of modern spiritualists. These persons 
assembled in circles bytheunitedinfluence of several 
wills are able to produce physical effects upon 
material objects without the use of physical 
agencies. They tip tables and chairs balance 
them on one leg and even move them and lighter 
objects through the air without touching them ; 
these phenomena are of such a wonderful character 
thatitisnot surprisingthatastheancientsattributed 
the action of the obscure forms of natural forces 
to spirits so persons should be bound who 
suppose these effects to be connected with 



*See case reported by Mr. Townsend, page 307 of " Townsend's Facts" for 
Example. 



WILL AND FORCE. J? 

the souls of the departed. This belief I do not 
accept but as its discussion is foreign to the subject 
I will not enter upon it but observe that here we 
have by the law of compensation mechanical 
motion a force overcoming gravity and as we have, 
seen capable of conversion into every other form 
of force light heat electricity chemical affinity etc., 
as a direct result of will or mind power. Whether 
that will be surely attributed to the operators or as 
they believe to thedeparted dead is imma- 
terial to our purposes. It is plainly the result 
of no physical force except will power — and 
will power if capable of producing that effect 
when exercised by the departed spirit is 
equally capable of producing like effects when 
exercised by the living. In how far this effect 
of the will might be aided by faith we cannot 
quantitatively determine yet there is no doubt a 
relation between the moral and the mental forces 
so that faith hope and charity exert a direct power 
over and are related to the will and other faculties 
of the purely mental forces at least as closely as 
ligh heat and motion. 

The remaining feature of mesmerism and psy- 
chology which deserves notice as a means of 
throwing light upon the science of mental mani- 
festations is that of clairvoyance whereby persons 
assume to see and as facts indicate do sometimes 
see or perceive independent of the ordinary 
sense of vision. Before proceeding to this branch 
of the subject it will be proper to observe more 



78 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

closely the phenomena of somnambulism, to 
which the mesmeric state has so close a 
resemblance. 

It has been observed that so far as memory is 
concerned, the individual while sleep-walking 
seems to be an entirely distinct personage from 
the same individual while awake. It further 
appears that persons while in this state have been 
known to show evidence of sight, while in a dark 
room, while their eyes were closed, and even 
when blind-folded with many folds of black silk, 
so as to entirely exclude the light, reading 
obscurely written names both familiar and 
unfamiliar. Now the theory of clairvoyance 
asserts that persons while in the mesmeric state 
are able to take cognizance of objects and facts 
by a sense of intuition quite independent of 
distance. Swedenborg asserts that spirits are 
independent of space that in the spiritual world 
space is unknown and that a mutual affinity of 
spirits with the desire for intercourse is sufficient 
to bring them into communication — and such is 
the claim of clairvoyants who claim to visit 
distant worlds instantaneously. The observation 
of facts in connection with this subject shows 
that those who do or who claim to possess this 
power are by no means infallible and would 
suggest, in many instances, that "dim-seeing" 
would be a more appropriate name than "clear- 
seeing," (clairvoyance.) Yet we cannot account 
for many facts that we observe otherwise than by 



PRESENTIMENTS. 79 

admitting that the minds of individuals may 
sometimes be affected by circumstances or facts 
of which they have no sensible perception, and 
by ideas in the minds of intimate friends which 
have not been communicated by any ordinary 
process, and this even when those persons are 
absent and remote. Of such facts are all cases 
of presentiments many of which are indisputable. 
For example read the following case reported 
in the Des Moines (Iowa) Register: 

"A gentleman who is temporarily absent from 
home and stopping in the city, relates to us that 
after retiring- to bed night before last, and before 
going to sleep, he seemed all at once to be in a 
room at home. Everything about the room 
seemed as real, and tangible as if he were that 
moment in it. It could not be a dream, because 
he had never for a moment lost his consciousness. 
Upon a bed in the room lay his brother, appar- 
ently very pale, and leaning over the bed stood 
his mother in great seeming distress. All day 
yesterday he could not banish the incident from 
his mind, and last night came the sequel. He 
received a letter from home saying that his 
brother had fallen from a high window, and ever 
since had lain in an unconscious state in the room 
which he had so plainly seen the night before, 
and that his mother had scarcely left his bedside. 
We have this information from a gentleman of 
intelligence and a disbeliever in all spiritual man- 
ifestations." 



SO IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

Examples of this kind are common, and while 
persons are by no means equally susceptible to 
these presentiments, perhaps attending to what 
our intuitions prompt favors the frequency of 
such impressions as giving importance to and 
relating dreams induces the habit of frequent 
dreaming. 

Among the ancients a common belief attributed 
all dreams to a supernatural origin and the 
influence of spirits. That belief science now 
contradicts, but that does not annihilate or 
change the fact that people dream. So investi- 
gation will demonstrate that presentiments when 
they occur are in conformity to natural laws, but 
will not thereby prevent their occurrence. 

From our inability to perceive thoughts by our 
senses the investigation of the laws of mind offers 
greater difficulties than those of the physical 
world. We may conceive that as " all the rivers 
run into the sea yet the sea is not full M because 
the rivers are supplied by it ; so the earth con- 
stantly receiving force from the sun and the force 
not being increased in the earth or diminished in 
the sun, must return to its solar source in some 
form as electric currents ; we may trace the 
nervous influence from retrograde changes into 
binary compounds ; but we cannot yet trace the 
product of the mental operation farther than we 
are conscious of its retention. There are facts 
which mightbe adduced as evidence that ideas pass 
from one mind to another without consciousness 



MIND. 8 1 

of their origin or destination by the persons 
concerned. The nearly simultaneous discovery 
of new truths by different individuals is a fact of 
this kind and many occurrences in the life of 
every individual attest to the correctness of the 
same theory. To conform to the general laws of 
nature which from the analogy with the other 
portions of the universe must apply to thought, 
it must have a source and a destination, for it 
does not seem rational that while even the 
grosser elements of the universe are indestruct- 
ible the highest form, the breath of the eternal 
Creator should be ephemeral. 

We must from analogy also conclude that as 
matter and force are indestructible and depend- 
ent and as the laws which apply to one apply 
equally to the other so mind the other element 
of the triune should be subject to the laws of 
eternal persistence or economy and correlation. 
The brain is acted upon in the production of 
mental action as in that of voluntary motion 
and sensation and derangement of its functions 
from organic lesion or from reflex influence from 
other organs produce the remarkable phenomena 
of insanity wherein the mental quality in itself 
is unimpaired but through the imperfection of 
its machinery incapable of normal action. 

It is evident that whatever may be true of the 
other qualities of mind the will is correlated to 
other forms of force and by its action or expenditure 
capable of producing them and consequently 



82 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS 

capable of being derived from them or the 
equilibrium of the universe would be destroyed 
and perpetual motion demonstrated. 

The separate functions of the mind seem also 
to bear relation to each other by which they are 
susceptible of mutual conversion into each oth er. 
Mental action directed in one channel cannot be 
employed in another. 

The further persistence of ideas is shown by the 
fact that the mind of a single individual may exert 
an influence that shall be felt through all coming 
generations. 

11 The evil that men do lives after them." 

Behold Martin Luther, Napoleon or Newton and 
trace the effect of their career for good or evil long 
after they have passed from the arena of human 
action. 

Mind is not confined exclusively to man and 
higher intelligences. We may trace very close 
relations between the minds of brutes and of man. 
The senses are nearly the same, in some instances 
the senses being more or less acute in other 
animals than in man. In man the gray substance 
of the brain is in greater quantity in proportion to 
the white substance than in brutes and the brain 
is generally larger in proportion to the entire bulk 
of the body. Animals possess reason but in very 
limited degree. Their means of communicating 
ideas are also very imperfect compared with those 
of man. It may be well questioned whether a 
human mind in the body of a brute could acquire 



BRUTES. 83 

by means of the senses and organs of the brute a 
higher state of perfection. 

In brutes there exists some overruling agency 
of intelligence giving them intuitive or instinctive 
knowledge of such facts as it is necessary for them 
to know. Mind matter and force are blended in 
the brute creation as in man with this difference 
that brutes have not moral attributes and while 
their spirits cannot be doubted to be as immortal 
as any physical force at least we are not yet able 
to trace their origin or their destination. 

From analogy we might infer that as certain 
animals receive crude matter and convert it into 
tissues suitable for the sustenance of our physical 
frame so the mental growth of the brute may 
serve some purpose for the growth of our intel- 
lects and that as there exists a complete scale in 
the vegetable and animal creation, from the lowest 
forms, to man, so each may have a purpose to 
serve for the higher orders in reference to the 
mental as well as physical constitution. 

Will power or a certain influence analagous to 
or identical with what we recognize as mesmerism 
exists between man and the lower animals. It 
has been observed that dogs are susceptible to 
mental impressions from the mind of man directly. 
A gentleman observing his favorite dog in his 
study reposing quietly upon the skin of a panther 
his usual place of rest while attentively considering 
the animal was impressed with the conception of the 
contrast between the then quiet and undisturbed 



84 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

deportment of the canine and the ferocity he 
would exhibit if the skin were the living animal 
from which it was taken and to which its appear- 
ance bore a striking resemblance when the dog 
immediately exhibited the greatest alarm and 
attacked the skin with terrible ferocity. We 
might question this circumstance did we not daily 
witness examples of the same influence that would 
be quite as incredible but for their familiarity. 
We observe many trained animals which follow 
implicitly the commands of their masters either 
by word or gesture yet will not pay the slightest 
attention to others. To attribute the obedience 
of many of these animals to a knowledge of our 
language sufficient to account for their accuracy 
in discrimination would imply the unreasonable 
hypothesis that animals created without the power 
of speech are gifted with the organ of language to 
an extraordinary degree. 

It seems more rational to consider the impression 
upon the mind of the dog a direct sequence of the 
mental action in the mind of his master and to 
consider the sound or gesture only necessary as a 
means of attracting his attention or perhaps an 
auxiliary to the mental impression. How far 
sounds and gestures are correlated with purely 
mental powers in producing impressions upon the 
mind or inducing the peculiar state we call the 
mesmeric or psychological state investigation must 
determine. From the accounts which reach us of 



DOGS. 85 

the employmeut of these means by eastern 
charmers there is reason to believe them important 
aids. 

The phenomena of certain dogs of delicate 
and sensitive nervous temperaments being able to 
follow the trail of men or animals are so very 
remarkable that without observation they might 
well be questioned. 

This power in the dog is usually attributed to 
the sense of smell. It is more than the sense we 
possess under that name. In walking or running 
the vital force is eliminated from the extremities 
in contact with the ground and is converted like 
other force expended into other forms of force, 
Asa result of this expenditure or more properly 
as an attendant upon this action there is an 
influence capable of producing an impression or 
sensation upon the brain of the dog. This 
impression is received and transmitted by nerves 
which ramify upon the nasal passages and has 
hence been attributed to odor and may be con- 
nected with an odor, although our sense of smell 
fails to distinguish it. This influence is eliminated 
from the toes in walking forwards and from the 
heels in walking backwards so that upon striking 
a trail the dog is able to determine its direction 
by scenting along the track backwards and for- 
wards a few times. 

The connection between men and dogs is 
further evinced by the effects observed upon 
children and invalids from associating with dogs 



86 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

Invalids have from this influence recovered 
remarkably while the dog has pined and died. 
Cats are observed to decline from excessive fond- 
ling. Dogs have been known to evince wonderful 
intuitive knowledge of the designs of dangerous 
persons upon their master or protectors. Well 
authenticated instances are on record where 
favorite dogs have evinced excessive grief at the 
death of their masters, and even died in conse- 
quence of such bereavement. Observation has 
established a popular belief that impending or 
present evils to those with whom the dog is 
associated intimately, cause him to evince 
uneasiness and discomfiture. In regard to this 
and many other beliefs which are the result of 
observation or tradition and for which no scien- 
tific reason has yet been assigned it is more in 
compliance with the spirit of true scientific 
inquiry to seek for such an understanding of the 
causes and influences concerned as shall enable us 
to affirm the truth or fallacy of the belief than to 
stubbornly insist that the belief is a superstition. 
I have known eminent physiologists to maintain 
that any impression upon the mind of the mother 
was incapable of producing congenital marks 
upon the infant simply because they were igno- 
rant of the correlation between the mental and 
organic forces. 

All who give attention to the subject will 
observe that other animals no less than dogs are 
similarly influenced by and exert influence upon 



ANIMALS. 87 

man. Ask the hunter or fisherman whether his 
designs are intuitively perceived by his game or 
observe the effect of a serpent or even a mouse 
upon a delicate human temperament. 

The investigation of the phenomena of mind 
will demonstrate that not only the laws of econ- 
omy and correlation apply to it as to matter and 
force but likewise the other great universal law 
of general and triune dependence not only in 
itself as a union of consciousness, ideas and will 
but in its various forms of existence as the 
various types of organic life are dependent upon 
each other. By the application of these laws we 
may come to know more not only of our relations 
to the lower orders of creation but to each other 
and the higher Intelligence by whose immaterial 
yet all-powerful will all things were and are 
created and continued. 



V. 



HARMONY. 



EVIDENCE— SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION— BIBLE— BIGOTRY 

—ASTROLOG Y—SO UND— FORCE— SENTIMENT— NUMBER 

—EMOTION— MENTAL AND MORAL QUALITIES— 

THE UNIVERSE. 



While a distinct individuality is characteristic 
of every species and every individual while exact 
resemblance is a natural impossibility so that no 
two leaves of the forest blades of grass grains of 
sand insects animals or human beings of all the 
countless multitudes that exist have existed and 
shall exist, are precisely alike ; while the law of 
variety is as universal as the law that no two 
bodies can occupy the same space at the same 
time, yet such is the dependence of all things 
that, in conformity with the law of harmony, 
each is part of one complete and perfect whole. 

Every element of the universe is dependent 
upon this law. Nature is ever acting to effect 
compensation and equilibrium. Harmony of 

appearances is evidence, the means by which we 



SUPERSTITION, 89 

obtain knowledge of truth or the harmony of 
facts. Evidence is of every degree from slight 
presumption to positive certainty according as 
the harmony of appearances is more or less 
perfect. Observation and tradition have estab- 
lished in the popular mind many theories and 
beliefs for which science in its present state does 
not fully account. While many of these are but 
the result of prejudice or false tradition yet the 
testimony in favor of others is such as to justify 
further investigation before pronouncing them 
superstition. 

The attainments of science and art have been 
more successful in the past than the most sanguine 
dared to predict. Every advance makes succeed- 
ing conquest more easy by the mutual assistance 
which different branches afford to each other 
from the dependence unity and harmony that 
pervades in the realm of truth as in nature. 

Science should therefore ever move with accel- 
erating velocity, and could modern scholars 
exercise that tireless patience and perseverance 
that characterized the earlier inventors most 
astonishing results might be speedily attained, 
yet superstition and bigotry ever retard its 
progress. Accepting theories upon insufficient 
evidence is fatal to advance in science. 

In our judgment of former times we are 
apt to assume for the actors in history a character 
compatible with the estimate we place upon their 
deeds. With reference to the belief in witchcraft 



90 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

in New England for instance, we are forced to 
assign extremely inferior reasoning powers to the 
people of those times or to admit that there was 
some actual influence exercised although doubtless 
attributed to a wrong source which was so 
remarkable as to be a just cause of alarm to men 
like ourselves in the power to reason and judge 
except in so far as superior educational advantages 
with the advance in scientific knowledge may 
give us the right to claim superiority. Is it not 
more reasonable to suppose that there were some 
remarkable manifestations as at least a partial 
excuse for those rigid laws upon this subject by- 
legislators whose children and cotemporaries 
framed the wisest and best system of government 
ever devised by man? If scientists instead of 
disputing circumstances they can not understand 
would seek for their cause it is not impossible that 
means for producing those effects might be dis- 
covered independent of satanic agency. The 
operation of the mind in dreams is often such as 
to demonstrate that it is prepared for its part in 
suspending the action of gravitation upon the 
body and many insects appear to possess this 
power. 

Recent observations also exhibit such a marked 
effect of the rays of the sun moon and stars upon 
terrestrial beings as to justify the study of the 
science of astrology. The ancients attributed the 
milder forms of insanity to the moon and gave 
the name lunacy indicating a lunar origin while 



BIGOTRY. 91 

they attributed the origin of the more violent 
mental abberations to the sun. When we reflect 
that astrology ranked as a science among the 
most civilized of ancient nations not unworthy the 
attention of the most acute philosophers of those 
times, and observe that they were men by nature 
our equals and from the evidences transmitted 
to us but little our inferiors in culture and art 
there is reason to conclude that planetary and 
solar influence was traced by them far more 
extensively than by ourselves in modern times. 

The fact of the worship of heavenly bodies 
especially the sun by a large proportion of the 
most civilized ancient nations also corroberates 
this view and argues more or less knowledge of 
the ideas we now recognize as new. Doubtless 
the ancients were acquainted with many facts 
which we have lost and while civilization has in 
its westward course just completed its first circuit 
of our earth we may look to the era of the com- 
mencement of its second, for a wonderful accession 
to its stores from the unlocking of the treasury 
lying now just before it where by a strange and 
anomalous isolation and conservation the secrets 
of ancient lore have been preserved in the great 
Mongolian race. 

History shows that the successive eras are 
marked by prevailing mental and moral character- 
istics. It is even possible to predict the return of 
the prevalence of particular crimes to an extraordi- 
nary degree. During the years since our sun has 



£2 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

exhibited such remarkable phenomena of late 
there has been an unusual preponderance of 
nervous affection insanity and suicide which latter 
is now giving way to murder or manslaughter. 
Changes in the moon visibly affect the weather 
and no change takes place in the weather without 
affecting the human brain. Severe headache often 
disappears with the setting of the sun and various 
diseases herald and respond to changes in climate. 
Sleeping exposed to the direct rays of the moon 
especially in the tropics is recognized as liable to 
produce mental and nervous affections. The 
influence of that orb upon the emotions in all 
climates is a theme monopolized by the poets and 
I forbear to trespass upon their grounds. 

The people of latitudes near the equator are 
more passionate and emotional than those more 
remote. They use more adjectives in their 
language more gestures and reflections in speaking 
and respond more promptly to any cause of 
excitement. Probably solar influence accounts 
for this difference as it is observed to follow the 
parallels of latitude independent of longitude. 

Another result of no little importance to the 
human race from the study of the effect of light 
upon animal vegetable and mineral products is to 
be found in the aid it renders to a correct under- 
standing of the causes and course of disease and 
the action of remedies. Plague pestilence and 
famine are often traced to super-terrestrial influ- 
ence. 



METEOROLOGY. 93 

Dr. Mansill has observed that from the positions 
of the planets we may trace the cause of those 
changes in the weather which are observed to 
take place independent of the advance of the 
seasons for which alone astronomy can account. 
He argues an action among the heavenly orbs the 
reverse of that assigned to them and claims that 
instead of reflecting light and heat upon each 
other they draw or " rob " that influence from 
each other. His theories corroborated by obser- 
vations are of interest to science. " Prognostics " 
of the weather are already advanced to a degree 
of accuracy which would seem miraculous to our 
forefathers or to savage tribes and which but a 
single century ago science would have considered 
impossible. 

If the incredulity of mankind as to facts they 
cannot understand is remarkable their credulity 
as to errors promulgated upon false or insufficient 
evidence or deduced by false reasoning is still 
more astonishing. The space of this work will 
not suffice for the recapitulation of the false 
dogmas of the past or even the enumeration of 
those believed and taught at the present day 
including the doctrine of latent heat, and materi- 
alism with the theories of geologists as to the fiery 
contents of our earth and its antiquity. 

Observation of past theories establishes a remark- 
able conformity between natural laws and the 
revealed attributes of Deity which warrants us in 
adding the Bible to our basis of known truths 



94 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

from which to reason. Those theories which oppose 
Revelation are ephemeral and the pathway of 
science is strewn with the debris of effete myths 
of the imagination which in their turn have been 
succeeded by swarms of others destined to share 
a similar fate ; while discoveries in harmony with 
that wonderful record which Providence has fur- 
nished and perpetuated are more firmly established 
by each succeeding age upon the eternal basis of 
truth. 

Harmony of force is power or efficient force 
while discord is inert or inefficient. Indeed 
harmony is not only essential to active force but 
it has many claims to be ranked as a distinct form 
of force like heat or motion. Harmony in sound 
is capable of producing remarkable effects. Every 
structure has a definite vibrating note and will 
respond to vibrations in unison w r ith it. Prof. 
Lovering of Harvard has observed that the violent 
shaking of factories by machinery may be obviated 
by an increase or decrease of the speed so as to 
change the vibrating note even when that note is 
so low as to be imperceptible to the sense of 
hearing and cites the case of the violinist who 
threw the iron bridge at Colebrook Dale into 
alarming and dangerous convulsions by striking 
upon his violin a note in harmony with its own. 
I have recently seen an account of a German bar 
tender who amused his customers by shivering 
glasses with a modulation of his voice and the 
breaking of lamp chimneys from the same cause 



HARMONY. 95 

is only too familiar to all. It is stated that 
military companies are required to cross iron bridges 
at route step to avoid the danger attendant upon 
regular marching and that the neglect of this rule 
broke the suspension bridge at Angiers France, 
and resulted in the loss of many lives. Railroad 
accidents are often traceable to a similar cause. 

These remarkable effects of harmony of sound 
are only an index to the effects of harmony in 
other forms of force all of which are influenced 
by the same universal law. 

Armies march farther and faster from keeping 
step than a single individual on the same track 
especially if music is also employed. Two horses 
will if they work in harmony start more than 
twice as much as one alone and the effect of will 
power acting as physical force when several 
"mediums" are united in their purpose are the 
most striking- evidence of the law of increase by 
harmony. It is not easy to say precisely what 
constitutes perfect harmony or to what extent 
force is thereby increased but the general preva- 
lence of the law of the square root in natural 
phenomena would lead to the presumption that 
forces acting in perfect harmony produce an effect 
equal to the square of their sum. 

The increased power which the will attains as 
the result of united action in concert with other 
wills points to the law of harmony as one of the 
conditions affecting human powers. 

Harmony of the vital function is health and 



g6 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

discordant action is disease. An Italian physician 
claims to have discovered that the nerves are 
susceptible of acting in different keys like the 
notes of the musical scale and that when they 
act on the same key whether high or low a pleas- 
ant equilibrium pervades but when from any 
cause their keys become discordant " nervousness M 
or irregular nervous action ensues, and he 
proposes to put them in tune like the keys of 
the piano. This theory may not be less true than 
that of the ancients who supposed that the 
heavenly orbs in their circuits produced the 
grandest " music of the spheres" in strains 
inaudible only to the ear of mortals. 

We observe that from harmony of sentiment 
are derived not only the most pleasant emotions 
but greatly accelerated mental powers. It has 
been observed that those intellects which have 
achieved the grandest results on the page of 
history have usually belonged to men whose 
wives mothers or most affectionate friends were 
remarkable for the perfection of their characters 
and their devotion to their families, showing 
that woman by her sympathy and affection may 
aid in the accomplishment of the grandest results 
more effectually than by seeking to overreach 
the bounds of that sphere which nature has 
assigned to her and which if she deserts she 
detracts from the harmony of the universe and 
shatters into discordant and prostrated energies 



MORAL QUALITIES. 97 

those powers of man to which she should be 
the support and stimulus. 

History also demonstrates that the strength of 
empires having its foundation in the family is 
established by harmony and union and shattered 
by discord. 

Not only may w r e trace harmony in its effects 
upon physical force mental force sound and will 
power but even the highest moral qualities attest 
its influence. Virtue is harmony with mankind 
our Maker and ourselves and in following the 
laws of harmony we are led " beyond the grave 
to the boundless realms of immortality " where 
Revelation assures us of perfect and perpetual 
harmony by the appropriate figure of constant 
strains of sweetest music. Pow r er, health, law, 
love, peace, virtue, joy, truth, and heaven are 
examples of harmony while their opposites are 
discord. Harmony of number is unity and is a 
law r of nature in consequence of which all things 
unite to form trinities and those compose one 
complete universe. 

The elements that unite to constitute harmony 
are individuality or difference, similarity or resem- 
blance and adaptation or fitness by which one 
agent or existence supplies what is necessary to 
complete the others and receives from them that 
which is necessary to its own perfection. Thus 
mind matter and force unite to form the uni- 
verse of nature whose various departments and 
Elements are capable of conversion without gain 



98 IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

or loss into each others forms by means of con- 
necting links as will and motion, thereby preserv- 
ing the economy or eternal persistence of all 
things and demonstrating the triune and general 
dependence of each part in consequence of which 
nothing can exist without all things else for when 
the harmony is destroyed by the removal of a 
single part destruction of the whole must follow 
and therefore all things by themselves are imma- 
terial. Thus time space and motion harmonize to 
continue creation and attraction repulsion and 
equilibrium to produce force. Like economy de- 
pendent trinity solitary immateriality converti- 
bility individuality and unity, harmony is a 
universal law and may be taken like all other 
universal laws as a known basis from which to 
reason in the extension of our knowledge from 
the familiar to the unknown. 

Indeed harmony is entitled to be classed as the 
chief law of the universe to which all the others 
great and important as they are are merely subserv- 
ient only being necessary to establish and support 
this " heaven's first law " and the epitome of all 
the laws of the universe as is love of the laws of 
morality. 

As will power connects the physical forces with 
the mental powers, and motion with time and 
space so harmony may be presumed to be a 
connecting link between the universal laws and 
some higher conception of which it is an element, 
perhaps the trinity of harmony or order, truth 
and justice. 



NATURE. ty) 

While we may trace the stupendous results of 
harmony in the grandest themes which we can 
contemplate and see it in its perfection not only 
among the elements of creation but pervading 
her several departments so that the animal veget- 
able and mineral kingdoms the solid liquid and 
aeriform products of the earth and countless orbs 
of the heavens with all their motions are charac- 
terized by difference similarity and adaptation 
the elements of this law, yet we may trace it 
like all universal laws in equal perfection among 
the least as well as the greatest of the Creator's 
v/orks. It is a law ever active and when impaired 
is not destroyed but nature is at hand to restore 
its perfect action by the aid of other laws as 
when too great a degree of heat is by the aid of 
the law of convertability relieved through its 
conversion into currents of positive and negative 
electricity and diffused in the air or sent to the 
earth to go in company with the currents that 
have undergone similar change which are ever 
passing from the equator to the poles as attested 
by the magnetic needle and the mighty gulf 
stream while the heavens clap their hands and 
the thunders roll in glad acclaim to attest that 
equilibrium is established and harmony is triumph- 
ant. 

This constant persistence of harmony in nature 
is a strong assurance of the operation of a like 
law in the moral world that shall eventually 
establish the triumph of truth and justice. 



IOO IMMATERIAL ELEMENTS. 

Impartiality in Deity is shown by the fact that 
this and other laws are not confined to great 
systems or individuals. Critics assert that the 
sounds of nature are in perfect harmony and it is 
certain that colors observe the same law while the 
most perfect harmony of design pervades the realm 
of creation and evinces infallible wisdom and uni- 
versal care. " The same law^ which moulds the 
dew drop forms the worlds" and that which 
provides for the least significant object has its 
seat in the bosom of Omnipotence, while 

" The glorious universe around, 

The heavens with all their train, 
Sun moon and stars are firmly bound 

In one mysterious chain. 

" The earth the ocean and the sky, 

To form one world agree, 
Where all that walk or swim or fly, 

Compose one family. 

" God in creation thus displays 

His wisdom and his might 
While all his works and all his ways 

In harmony unite." 



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